Evaluating the effectiveness of contractor safety training in reducing work-related accidents

Background: Safety training as the most important step in obtaining safety qualifications for construction contractors can help reduce the accidents rate. This study has been conducted with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of safety training for construction contractors in reducing work-related accidents during a 5-year period (2014-2018). Method: This historical cohort study was conducted in forty-four contractor companies in 2019. Half of the 44 contractors were qualified by safety training and the other half were unqualified. The data were analyzed in this study included the characteristics of the contractors, safety training parameters and documents of contractors' safety qualification certificate, as well as the data on work-related accident reports. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS v.22.0. Results: The highest and lowest levels of desirability in the training provided to contractors included training time (77.8%) and training technique (40.7%), respectively. The results of Cochran's test showed that after providing safety training and obtaining a certificate of safety qualification, the incidence ratio of work-related accidents and deaths in the exposure group has decreased significantly (p<0.05). In addition, the incidence ratio in the two groups of exposure and non-exposure were significantly different in 2017 and 2018 (p <0.05). Conclusion: The findings indicated that despite the reduction in the incidence ratio of work-related accidents and deaths after providing safety training, improving the quality and desirability of safety training to obtain a certificate of safety qualification of contractors can greatly increase the effectiveness of training and helping significantly reduce the incidence of construction accidents.