A descriptive study to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding health hazards management against traffic pollution among traffic policemen working at selected districts of Punjab.

Abstract

Health is not something that one possesses as a commodity, but connotes rather a way of functioning within one's environment (work, recreation and living). This fact is more important in situations as the personnel engaged in traffic duty. Due to their nature of duty traffic police personnel are suffering from many health hazards like skin irritations, hearing problems, arthropathy, photosensitivity, lung diseases, certain cardiovascular diseases, cancers etc. The study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding health hazards management against traffic pollution among traffic policemen working at selected Districts of Punjab. A descriptive study was conducted in District Bathinda and sample size was 60 traffic policemen who were working at traffic intersections. Structured knowledge questionnaire, likert scale and observational practice checklist was used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices health hazards management against traffic pollution among traffic policemen. The findings of the study revealed that most of the traffic policemen (75%) had average knowledge, 86.7% had favourable attitude and all traffic policemen had poor practices regarding health hazards management against traffic pollution. There was no relation between knowledge and attitude, positive co-relation between knowledge & practices and attitude & practices. Place of posting and attended any educational programme on traffic pollution and its health hazards had association with knowledge of traffic policemen and no association of attitude and practice with demographic variables It was concluded that traffic policemen had average knowledge, favourable attitude and poor practices regarding health hazards management against traffic pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]