Analysis of occupational safety and health risk perception of elementary school employees in Depok City, Indonesia

Risk perception is a subjective assessment of the likelihood of an accident and how aware a person is of its consequences. Perception is also an important factor that acts as a precursor to a behavior or a basis for risk prevention. School employees are in direct contact with children, who often have accidents. Therefore, risk perception studies involving school employees are required to develop any necessary accident prevention programs. Ten health and safety risks were chosen, which were being pinched, hit or pricked; falling down the stairs; being hit by a motorized vehicle; fire; natural disasters; noise; food contamination; hazardous chemicals; eye strain; and stress due to workload. Nine psychometric paradigms, namely: Voluntariness of risk, the immediacy of effect, known to those exposed to of risk, known to science, controllability, newness, chronic-catastrophic, common-dread, and severity of consequences, were used to evaluate the perception. The population of this study was all teachers and administrative staff at 14 primary schools at Depok City. The total number of respondents was 199 people. This study shows that, of the ten risks studied, a risk that can be accepted voluntarily is eye strain; risks that cannot be accepted voluntarily are fire and contaminated food; a risk that has a delayed effect is stress due to workload; a long-standing risk which has an immediate effect is being pinched, hit or pricked; a risk that is known to science and is often experienced but can be controlled is eye strain; while a risk which has many effects, may be fatal, and is feared and uncontrollable is a natural disaster. It was shown that natural disaster has been perceived as unacceptable risk among ten risks under study. The perception of natural disasters was that they are catastrophic, dreaded, certainly fatal, and sometimes uncontrollable.