Iran Occupational Health

Background and aims: Various factors affect the safety performance of employees and safety locus of control (SLOC) is one of the main determinants. People with an internal locus of control believe that they can control events and conditions and People with an external locus of control believe that events caused by factors such as chance, fate, environment and performance of other people. Therefore, to prevent accidents attention to the SLOC is very important. This study aimed to determine the SLOC and its related factors in employees of an industry.

 Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 172 employees of an industry in a central provinces of Iran. Data collection was performed using demographic-job and SLOC questionnaires. Data Gathering was performed in a semi-supervised manner. Data analyzed with SPSS software (version20) using independent T tests, Pearson correlation and liner regression.

Results: The mean score of SLOC was 38.5±5.08 and was Larger than the mean intended to scale (µ=36) and was internal in the studied population. Chronic disease, smoking and Employment in second job have significant relationship with SLOC but other studied variables were not significantly associated with SLOC.

Conclusion: Some variables may be influence the perception of people about level of control that they can have on events and in fact affect people's safety locus of control. As a result, these variables could change safety locus of control and indirectly affect safety performance and accident occurrence.