Accident research II for the college students happened during Dental Laboratory Technology-major classes

치기공과 실습 중 안전사고 실태조사 II

The purpose of this study was to identify the accidents happened in the college dental laboratory technique classes and to realize the level of safety education for the dental laboratory technique major students. The research data were collected from a self-administered survey distributed to the conveniently selected college students whose majors were dental laboratory technology in Suwon, Daejeon, Daegu, Kimcheon, and Icsan. The study participants were 422 freshmen, sophomore and junior students in the selected cities. All collected survey responses were encoded and analyzed in SPSS 12.0. The findings were as follows. 1. The students who had any accidents in their laboratory classes were 36% and the other 64% answered 'no.' 2. Most injuries which the participants had were not significant. 3. The medical treatment periods of most injury cases were less than one week; however, approximately 20% of the self-reported injury cases reported that their treatment periods were longer than one week. 4. The body parts frequently injured from accidents were hands with 84.7% and arms, eyes, face, head, and legs in order. 5. Concerning the materials involved in the laboratory classes, most accidents happened when working with wax in 59.9%, with plaster in 52.3%, with wire in 39.8%, with alcohol in 34.6%, and casting iron in 22.2% in order. 6. The accident-prone laboratory methods were polishing with 53.5%, pickling or sanding with 17.4%, and casting or burning with 5.8% in order. 7. Most students wore their laboratory gowns well; however, few students wore mask before dust-involved jobs. Furthermore, only 57.1% students answered their laboratory fans worked during the polishing job. 8. Approximately 54% participant students answered that they took laboratory safety education when necessary only from the class instructors. 9. The 76.1% students responded that they needed laboratory safety education at least 1-2 times every semester. 10. The survey participants answered that the primary factors for injury prevention in their laboratory were taking safety education, wearing safety equipments, and providing safety-focused facilities. Concludingly, comprehensive evaluation and monitoring for potential risk factors from both the human side and the environment side should be continually provided to minimize the college laboratory accidents.