Study perception of hospital safety sign and related factors

Background: the safety signs are used as one of the methods of notification and warning to the staff regarding the type and intensity of existing hazards in the workplace. Objective: this study aimed to investigate perception of the Hospital safety signs and comparison with ISO and ANSI standard also survey relationship between variables such as age, gender, and work experience and education level with perception of the signs. Methods: This analytical-descriptive study was done in 2016. Tools include a standard questionnaire (ISO 9186-1) and criteria of safety signs (ANSIZ535.3).  The sample included 200 non-monochromatic employees working in two hospitals of Bushehr City. Stratified - Random sampling method was used, then, obtained data were analyzed using SPSS-16 software. Results: the overall mean of perception in the two studied hospitals was 61.04% ± 25.74. The highest and lowest levels of perception were respectively related to the sign "no smoking"(97.5%) and "stretcher to carry injured" (11.5%). 11 and 5 of signs cannot be reached to limit of acceptable perception base on ISO and ANSI. also In 11 case (91%), the level of personnel perception was higher than clients. Result also showed which, in most cases, there was no significant relationship between perception and gender, age, education, experience and type of sample (p<0.05). Conclusions: the results showed that perception patterns of signs are different. Assessing perception of signs show a moderate level of perception in accordance with ISO and ANSI standard, with regard to less than the standard limit “Risk of biological substances” and “Stretcher to carry injured “safety signs, redesigning this sign is needed. The results showed that type of sample and gender was not an effective factor on safety signs perception.