Practices and Needs of Health Promotion Program among Workers in A Petrochemical Industry Complex

석유화학단지 근로자들의 건강행위 실천 정도와 건강증진 요구도

Objectives: To propose the basic data for the development of the optimum health promotion program (HPP) for the workers in a petrochemical industry complex. Methods: The subjects were 553 workers who worked at the six plants in a petrochemical industry complex. From February to March 2003, questionnaire survey was conducted by the nurses with occupational health specialty about the life styles, interests, self-cognitions, practices of health behavior, subjective symptoms thought to be related the working environments, burden to the own health, needs and intentions to participation of the HPP. Data analysis was done using SPSS program (ver 10.0) with ${\alpha}=0.05$ of statistical significance. Results: The mean age and tenure of the subjects were 39.7 years and 14.2 years, respectively, and proportion of smokers was around 50%. Two of third (66%) satisfied their own job, and 58% recognized themselves healthy. The most frequent health behavior were exercise (60%) and regular health check (87%) in individual and job based, respectively. About half of them (58%) had at least one of the symptoms thought to be related the working environments, and the most frequent one was odor (21%). These symptoms were more frequent in case of the shorter career. The needs of HPP was relatively higher in exercise (66%), cancer prevention (51%), stress control (47%), and intention to participation was also the highest in exercise (64%). Job satisfaction was higher in case of the higher interests and cognitions to their own health, and thought that the ownership's interest to workers' health be high (p<0.01), but no associations with the subjective symptoms. The mean level of burden to the own health were $14.1{\pm}13.9$ of physical, $11.7{\pm}13.6$ of emotional, $9.1{\pm}10.7$ of behavioral as out of one hundred. They felt the more burden in case of office workers, the lower interests and cognitions to their own health, the lower satisfaction to their job, the frequent drinking group, and complained the subjective symptoms (p<0.05). Abnormal results of the regular health check was higher in the frequent drinking group (p=0.083). Conclusions: For the optimum HPP for the workers in the petrochemical complex, the ownership's interest to workers' health would be enhanced, and the priority would be focused on exercise and drinking habits control.