An analysis of individual and social factors affecting occupational accidents

Abstract Introduction This paper aims at modeling the major factors affecting accidents in the workplace, including general health, work-family conflict, effort-reward imbalance, and internal and external locus of control. Method A cross-sectional study was conducted in Esfahan Steel Company in Iran. 450 participants were divided into two groups – control and case – and the questionnaires were distributed among them. Data were collected through a seven-part questionnaire. Finally, results were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Amos software. Result All the studied variables had a significant relationship with the accident-proneness. In case group, general health with a coefficient of -0.37, work-family conflict with 0.10, effort-reward imbalance with 0.10, internal locus of control with -0.07, and external locus of control with 0.40 had a direct effect on occupational stress. Occupational stress also had a positive direct effect on accident proneness with a coefficient of 0.47. In addition, fitness indices of control group showed general health (-0.35), work-family conflict (0.36), effort-reward imbalance (0.13), internal locus of control (-0.15), and external locus of control (0.12) have a direct effect on occupational stress. Besides, occupational stress with a coefficient of 0.09 had a direct effect on accident proneness. Conclusion It can be concluded that although previous studies and the present study showed the effect of stress on accident and accident proneness, some hidden and external factors such as work-family conflict, effort-reward imbalance, external locus of control, affect stress should also be considered. It helps industries face with less occupational stress and, consequently, less occurrence rate of accidents.