Understanding the Relationship between Construction Workers' Psychological Conditions and Safety Factors

The South Korean construction industry has shown a high proportion of industrial accidents (approximately 28% of whole injuries) and the continuously increasing accident rate. Although many safety research emphasized that the 3E (Enforcement, Education, and Engineering) approach is a potential solution to enhance workplace safety, there should be benefits to consider psychological (i.e., Emotional) effects on the safety performance since most construction works are human-oriented. Thus, understanding construction workers' psychological conditions can be a priority. This research studied the relationships between psychological conditions-which cover stress, personal temperament, emotional disturbance, and drinking habit-and specific safety-related factors including safety motivation and knowledge, and safety performance of individual workers at a construction site. This study conducted a survey of 430 respondents and analyzed the data with the multiple linear regressions. The results imply persistence, trait anxiety, and problem-focused coping style are the critical factors that should be controlled for enhancing jobsite safety. Finally, the research outcomes could be applied to build a strategic safety management plan for a construction manager.