Knowledge of occupational hazards and safety practices among petrol station attendants in Sokoto metropolis, Sokoto State, Nigeria

Background: Petrol station attendants are a high risk group and are exposed to occupational hazards with no control over the length and frequency of safety regulation. The study aimed to assess the knowledge of petrol station attendants about the occupational hazards they are exposed to and the safety practices used to prevent them. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out in Sokoto metropolis, Nigeria and it was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Using a multi-staged sampling technique, 108 petrol station attendants were recruited for the study. Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire adapted from published articles which was administered to the respondents by an interviewer. The data was imputed and analyzed using SPSS software. Results: Sixty-two (59.0%) respondents had poor knowledge while only 16 (15.1%) had negative attitude. Seventy-two (72.4%) of respondents knew that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were harmful to health and a good proportion knew about work safety practices such as they ought not to smoke cigarettes at the workplace (92.4%). Only 2.8% of respondents used hand gloves while 19.4% used apron always. Conclusions: The finding of poor knowledge of VOCs with very few of them adopting workplace safety practices underscores the need for employers in this sector to identify workplace hazards, adopt safety measures to curb them, train new employees and retrain staff on safety measures, and provide personal protective equipment (PPE) for daily use.