Safety behavior of agricultural workers around face mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Agricultural labor-intensive activities have been threatened by COVID-19. Wearing a face mask has been introduced as one of the personal protective equipment (PPE) to reduce COVID-19 risk. OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to investigate the safety behavior of urban green space workers around wearing a face mask in the time of COVID-19 before vaccination. METHODS: The personal and safety backgrounds of 61 male participants were collected using a designed questionnaire. The nonparametric correlation coefficients of Spearman and logistic regressions were used to investigate the relationships among variables. RESULTS: Above one-third of workers (37.7%) got COVID-19 in the past year. Although all of the participants were aware of wearing a face mask is a protocol against COVID-19, only about half of them (50.8%) completely wear face masks at work. Non-smoking participants were 5.5 times more likely to influence their personal preference on wearing the mask. CONCLUSION: Safety attitude may be a key variable in relation to the factors that influence the wearing face mask. The causes of face mask-wearing during a pandemic such as COVID-19 as well as safety attitudes may be behind the factors studied in this study. Although some significant linkages were found, they were not enough to conclude a comprehensive action program. This concern is still open to discovering factors that influence wearing face mask.