Perceptions of health status and the importance of health in coal enterprise workers [Kömür işletmesinde çalişan işçilerin saglik durumlarini ve sagligin önemini algilamalari]

AIM: To determine perception of health status and the importance of health in coal enterprise workers'. METHOD: Descriptive research was conducted at one coal enterprise, between November 2008 and January 2009. The universe includes 745 male workers. Sample size was determined as 207 workers with 95.0% confidence interval, 5.0% standard error. The workers were chosen stratified random sampling method according to the department in the workplace. Data were collected by using the questionnaire including sociodemographic characteristics of workers, the stories of health and disease, health behaviors, behaviors for occupational health and safety, Perception of Health Status Scale and the Importance of Health Scale. RESULTS: All workers were male, 53.1% of workers were high school graduates. Mean age was 43.81±7.57 and working year average was 18.43±7.80. Of the workers 43.0% were had regular health checkup by workplace doctor, 28.5% used medicine permanently, 15.0% had cancer history in the family. Approximately one of every five workers had occupational accidents (19.3%). 60.4% of the workers perceive health as "bad", while the mean score of perception of health was 3.65 ± 0.64. Mean score of importance of health scale was 8.48 ±2.41. There was a difference between occupational accident and the mean score of perception of health status (t=2.81, p0.05). CONCLUSION: More than half of workers perceive physical health as "bad", on the other hand to be physically and mentally healthy were adopted as an important value. Workers who had occupational accident perceive health as "bad". Although not statistically significant, workers who had occupational accident have shown positive difference on health importance