Work-Related Health Symptoms, Personal Protective Equipment Use, and Environmental Risk Perceptions Among Textile Factory Workers: A Cross Sectional Study in Iraq

Abstract

Textile factory workers may expose the individual to airborne particles, chemical agents and workload related stressors that may cause adverse health outcomes. Evidence from Iraq is limited, however, on issues such as symptom burden, use of PPE, and worker's views on risks. A cross-sectional survey was performed in the workplace among textile factory workers (N = 50). Data were gathered from a structured questionnaire on sociodemographic characteristics; work conditions (daily working hours, years of experience); PPE usage, health indicators (chronic disease, occupational disease, stress/anxiety); health symptoms related to work in the job and perceived environmental/community/economic impacts. Descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies and percentages were reported. The types of symptoms were summarized at a worker level among workers reporting symptoms related to work. The sample was mostly female (62%) and mostly middle-aged (41-50 years old: 46%; 51-60 years old: 30%). The dominant number of participants worked 6 hours/day (60%) and had 5-25 years of experience (80%). PPE use was low (28%). Chronic diseases were reported by 48% of workers, occupational diseases by 54% and stress/anxiety by 66%. Work-related health symptoms were reported by 54% of the participants. Among the symptomatic workers (n=27), the most common symptoms were related to exhaustion (51.85%), headache (25.92%), allergy-related symptoms (18.51%); asthma-related complaints and visual impairment were each reported by 7.4%. In terms of perceptions, 62% thought that the textile activity has an impact on the environment, 54% of them perceived an effect on local inhabitants and 66% perceived an effect on the local economy. Of those who response about environmental impact (n = 31), air pollution was the predominant type of perceived damage (83.87%). Textile factory workers had a high prevalence of work-related symptoms and psychosocial burden along with low PPE use and strong perceptions of air pollution-related harm. These findings provide an argument to reinforce PPE programs, enhance airborne exposures controls and ventilation and also integrate psychosocial risk management as an occupational health approach. Future studies need to include objective exposure measurement and analytic modeling in order to quantify determinants of symptoms.