Awareness of the use of personal protective equipment among construction workers

The construction industry is one of the major employment sectors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for both skilled and unskilled employees. However, the issue of health and safety in this industry appears to be a major challenge. As such, in this study, we evaluated the awareness of construction workers in Sharjah, UAE, on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE). In this study, we used a cross-sectional study design, and data were collected from 360 respondents using a questionnaire prepared in English and Malayalam languages. The study revealed that all the respondents were male with an average age of about 36 years. Furthermore, there was no significant association between the age of respondents and awareness of incident reporting; however, there was a significant association (P = 0.030) between education level and incident reporting awareness. There was also an association between work experience (P = 0.013) and awareness of incident reporting. Further, 91% of the employees agreed that they were aware of how to safely carry out their various activities while working at their respective construction sites. Furthermore, there was a close correlation (P = 0.025) between awareness of how to work safely and the education level of the respondents. Eighty-five percent of the respondents acknowledged that they were unaware of PPE usage at the workplace. We conclude that there is a need for more attention to occupational health and safety in the construction sector, and the need to identify and address occupational health risks early, introducing preplacement and periodic examinations for workers, and employing qualified and well-trained safety and health personnel at the various construction sites becomes imperative.