Reliability and validity of a safety climate questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health and Safety
• Psychometrics
• Industrial Psychology

Background:

• A strong safety culture is crucial for preventing accidents.
• Developing a reliable safety climate assessment tool is essential for accident control.
• This study focused on creating a Persian version of a safety climate questionnaire.

Purpose of the Study:

• To construct and validate a Persian questionnaire to assess safety climate.
• To provide a tool for measuring safety perceptions in industrial settings.

Main Methods:

• A 61-item questionnaire was adapted from existing studies and translated into Persian using back-translation.
• The questionnaire was administered to 324 operational staff in Iranian oil refineries.
• Principle component analysis with Varimax rotation was employed to identify underlying factors.

Main Results:

• Factor analysis identified seven key dimensions of safety climate: Management Commitment to Safety and personnel collaboration (23 items), Safety communication (5 items), Supportive environment (5 items), Work Environment (6 items), Formal Training (4 items), Priority of Safety (5 items), and Personal Priorities and Need for Safety (3 items).
• These factors explained a significant portion of the variance in safety climate perceptions.

Conclusions:

• The developed Persian safety climate questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool.
• This instrument can significantly benefit oil refineries by identifying areas for safety improvement.
• The generic nature of the scale suggests its applicability to other industrial workplaces beyond the oil refinery sector.