An enquiry into the safety culture of workers in Gonabad stonecutting industry and its relation with workers’ demographic characteristics in 2014

Background: The safety culture in an organization reflects the overall attitude of the organization towards safety. Positive safety culture is a factor that commits all workers to play a part in their own safety and that of other coworkers. This study explores the safety culture among the workers of a stonecutting industry and its relation with workers’ demographic characteristics. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional research carried out on 111 workers of the stonecutting industry of Gonabad city in 2014. Sampling was through census, and the data were collected using the safety culture standard questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 18 using the statistical test of Chi-square. Results: The mean and the standard deviation of the workers’ safety culture score were 241.79 ± 11.35. Overall, 30% of the workers had a positive safety culture and 70% of them had a negative safety culture. Positive and negative safety cultures had a statistically significant relationship with work experience (P 0.001). positive and negative safety cultures did not correlate significantly with age, education and occupational groups (P 0.05). Conclusions: Although the stonecutting industry has a positive safety culture, it seems necessary to continuously hold the training and monitoring programs related to safety precautions, especially in workers with higher work experience.