Relationship Between Knowledge and Availability of Personal Protective Equipment with the Attitudes Toward Occupational Safety and Health of the Students in Laboratory X

Abstract

Occupational Safety and Health (here after OSH) are all efforts to protect workers / laborers in order to realize optimal work productivity which is a human right protected by Law of the Republic of Indonesia Number 1 of 1970 about Work Safety.⁽⁴⁾ Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is a substantial component that needs to be enforced whether in industrial sectors or in educational sectors. Educational sectors require to implement OSH learning practices as what has been implemented in the Laboratory X at Faculty of X. Practically, the students occupying the laboratory must have the attitude of OSH to lessen or foreclose the risks of unwanted occupational accidents. Experiments conducted in the laboratory undoubtedly contain hazards reasoning from physical, chemical, ergonomic, and psychosocial factors. Negative impacts that can occur such as the emergence of potential hazards that can cause accidents, fires or blasting and environmental pollution. In addition, potential hazards can also threaten the safety and health of workers at risk of workplace accidents and work-related illnesses, thus impacting the company both financially and company reputation.⁽¹⁾ This research is observational descriptive research which aims at realizing the relationships between the knowledge level and the availability of Personal Protective Equipment (here after PPE) to the attitudes toward OSH in Laboratory X. The sample of this research is all population that consists of 33 student respondents in Faculty of X. The research method employed in the data collection, this research was the observational descriptive research. The instrument of this research is in the form of questionnaire concerning on the knowledge of OSH, the availability of PPE, and the attitudes toward OSH in the laboratory. The results sustain that there is no correlation between the knowledge level of OSH and the attitudes toward OSH in the laboratory. However, there is a weak relationship noticed between the availability of PPE and the attitudes toward OSH in the laboratory (p=-0.056; α=0.05). Thus, in the end, it can be inferred that the knowledge level of OSH does not influence the attitudes toward OSH, yet the availability of PPE does even though according to the statistic test, the relationship between the availability of PPE and the attitudes toward OSH is considered perceptible.