Development and Validation of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Questionnaire: Toward Safe Working in Confined Spaces.

Hamiza Ngah,Nurul Ainun Hamzah,Shahronizam Noordin,Mohd Nazri Shafei,Suhaily Mohd Hairon

doi:10.3390/ijerph19031242

Abstract

Confined space workers do a wide range of tasks, many of which have a significant risk of hazardous exposure. Hence, a reliable and valid questionnaire is important in assessing the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of workers in this field. The present study was conducted to develop and validate a questionnaire that could assess the KAP for safe working in a confined space. The questionnaire went through a development and validation process. The development stage consisted of a literature review, expert’s opinion, and evaluation by experts in the field via cognitive debriefing. The validation stage encompassed exploratory and confirmatory parts to investigate the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. A total of 350 participants were recruited among confined space workers from two oil and gas companies in Malaysia. The two-parameter logistic item response theory (2-PL IRT) analysis was used for the knowledge section. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used in the attitude and practice sections of the validation stage. The development stage resulted in 30 items for knowledge, attitude, and practice sections. Items in the knowledge section showed an acceptable difficulty and discrimination, as noted during the 2-PL IRT analysis. The EFA resulted in a one-factor model for attitude and practice sections, and contained 18 items, with factor loading > 0.4. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.804 and 0.917 for attitude and practice sections, respectively. The CFA for attitude and practice sections indicated a good model fitness (Raykov’s rho = 0.814 and 0.912, respectively). All items indicated good reliability and valid psychometrics for determining KAP on safe working in a confined space.

Highlights

Introduction iationsWorkers are often exposed to dangerous situations due to the nature of the confined spaces (CS) in their workplaces which can result in injuries or death
Phase 1 comprised of the questionnaire development stage, while Phase 2 included the psychometric validation of the questionnaire using the item response theory (IRT), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
The remaining items were clear in their wording and proper terminologies that could be understood by the participants were used

Summary

Introduction

Workers are often exposed to dangerous situations due to the nature of the confined spaces (CS) in their workplaces which can result in injuries or death. According to the law in Malaysia (Industry code of practice for safe working in a confined space, 2010), a CS is defined as a space that is large enough so that the workers can enter and carry out specific tasks, but that the entry and exit of people is limited, resulting in an unfavorable environment that contains or produces a hazardous atmosphere [1]. To avoid exposing workers to dangerous conditions, everyone who is compelled to enter a confined space for work reasons must follow the Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion