Investigating the status of prevention of coronavirus in industries

Background and aims: Considering the high prevalence and lack of standard treatment for the new coronavirus, the best way in the current situation is to avoid infection and prevent its spread. In occupational environments, especially industries, due to air pollution with dust, gases and vapors and allergens and irritants, workers are susceptible to COVID-19 infection. Respiratory exposure of workers to these contaminants can adversely affect the function of their respiratory system and predispose them to respiratory diseases. In some industrial environments, due to the nature of work, workers are forced to work close to each other or use common tools and devices, thereby increasing the risk of the coronavirus outbreaks. Due to the high population density in factories and companies, it is necessary to study the prevention of the coronavirus and application of control measures. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the prevention of coronavirus in industry. Methods: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was performed after the pandemic of Covid-19 in April 2020. Three hundred and fifty Iranian industries were investigated in this study. In order to assess the status of Covid-19 prevention in industrial environments, a researcher-made questionnaire was used to perform the study. This study was conducted in three phases including checklist design, checklist validation and industry evaluation. The checklist questions were designed based on the latest recommendations offered by reputable international organizations. The initial questionnaire had 40 questions. To determine the validity, the questionnaire was checked carefully by a panel of experts, including 15 professors and experts in safety and emergency management. Content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) were also used to assess validity. Moreover, Cronbachchr(chr('39')39chr('39'))s alpha coefficient was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. After designing and validating the checklist, in order to maintain ethical issues and prevent theCovid-19 outbreak the completion of the checklists’ items, the checklists were prepared electronically and distributed in more than 50 social networks of occupational health professionals and HSE. The purpose of the study and how to answer the questions were fully explained to the occupational health and HSE officials. Next, the information was extracted and analyzed by SPSS software version 23. Results: After checking the validity of the designed checklist, 13 questions were removed and 27 questions remained in total. The results of face validity showed that the transparency, appropriateness and overall simplicity of the questionnaire were equal to 0.90, 0.93 and 0.91, respectively. The lowest and highest values of validity index were 0.79 and 1, respectively. Also, the minimum and maximum content validity ratios were, respectively, equal to 0.65 and 1. Total CVI and CVR values of the questionnaire were determined to be 0.87 and 0.92. Furthermore, based on the results of completed questionnaires by the industries, the Cronbachchr(chr('39')39chr('39'))s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire was calculated to be 0.92. The findings of the evaluation showed that the commitment of management to the implementation of prevention programs in the industries is in good condition and most of the surveyed industries have a developed program to prevent of Covid-19. However, some areas such as telecommuting, distancing, and procuring some essential items were in poor condition. It was found that only 36.4% of the industries have taken action to strengthen local and general ventilation systems and more than 90% of them have held training programs for prevention. The most and the least supplied items were related to detergents (95.1%) and respirators (37.8%). Moreover, few industries have used the teleworking protocol (48.1%) and created an isolated room (26.1%) to isolate suspicious cases in emergencies. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the designed checklist has a high reliability and can help the management of the organization in assessing the current situation to manage the prevention of Covid-19. The results of the evaluation illustrated that the commitment of management to implement prevention programs in industries is in good condition and most of the industries surveyed have a developed program to combat Covid-19. However, some areas, such as teleworking, spacing, and the provision of some essential items, were in an unfavorable position, requiring the strengthening of discovered weaknesses.