Iran Occupational Health

Background and aims: The use of safety signs is one of the common methods of Informing and alerting the workers in relation whith type and severity of hazards in the workplace, These signs use to inform a person of danger And encourage him to do the protective measures. According to this, appropriate comprehension of safety signs in workplace is very important, The purpose of this study was evaluation of the perception of safety signs and related factors.

 Methods: This Analytical-Descriptive study was done in 2013-2014 for 3 provinces in industrial region of Khuzestan, Fars, and Tehran. Samples in this study were 370 workers of these states who weren't colorblind., this study use a standard questionnaire from international organization standard (ISO 9186-1) and American National Standards Institute understanding Criteria of safety signs(ANSIZ535.3)also the questionnaire of demographic information were be used. 13 safety signs were utilized for determination of the perception. Stratified – Random sampling methods for sampling and statistical test of Chi-Squer for analyzing data were applied, by means of SPSS (ver.16) and excel software.

Results: The results showed that comprehension  of safety signs  divided by province and according to standards ANSI Z535.3 and ISO3864, Most of the correspondence respectively with 76% and 92%,  related to the province Khuzestan, also results showed that all safety signs have a significant relationship between the perception of signs and type of industry P<0/05,  In 5 cases (Percent 38 ) and  6cases (Percent 46) A significant relationship was found between age and experience with perception respectivrly, And 10 cases (76%) of the signs was also related with education level P<0/05,also In 8 cases (61.5% ) and  2cases (15.3%) A significant relationship was found between sex and shifwork with perception.

Conclusions: The results showed that the type of industry, educationand level and sex is factors which affecting the comprehension but shiftwork Can not Effective factor on safety signs perception, also with regards to, more than the standard illusive limit “Emergency exits” and “Wearing face shield “safety signs, redesign this sign is urgent need.