Evaluation of usability and discomfort of safety footwear in different industries of Mazandaran province

Introduction: Providing safety for human resources in the industry is of great importance and safety shoes are one of the most common PPEs that have the task of protecting the foot against potential hazards. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the discomfort and usability of safety shoes in different industries in order to find gaps in the quality of design and improve the design of safety shoes. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study and was conducted in 1400. Employees of 11 different industrial companies that used 7 brands of safety shoes were included in this study and answered two researcher-made questionnaires, LPD (discomfort and general satisfaction) and SFUQ (usability). The software SPSS version 25 was used to analyze the data for a descriptive analysis. Also, Spearman rank correlation coefficient, Pearson correlation coefficient and ANOVA test were performed. Results: 226 men with a mean age of 36.33±7.4 years were included in this study. The lowest usability, brand G (3.3 and 3.99), and the least discomfort and the most usability index, brand A (1.2 and 5.35) were reported by the participants. Overall, the highest satisfaction was reported in relation to brand A, and the lowest satisfaction to brand G. Discussion: The findings of this study showed that the main problem in comfort and usability is probably related to shoe molds because the manufacturers of safety shoes import molds from abroad that do not fit the anthropometric characteristics of Iranian users’ feet.