• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.83-96
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• 1998

The study was conducted to analyze employees' and employers' awareness of occupational health programs for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of the program employed in small-scale enterprises (SSE). The 400 SSE that have under 50 employees and have been supported by the Government were selected for mail survey, and 120 employers and 318 employees of 183 factories returned the questionnaires. The results are as follows; 1) 33.8% of employees were not aware of the fact that their factories have been supported by Government, and 69.1% of employees did not know who was the monitor of that program. Only 147% of employees and 35.5% of employers agreed that the supported program reflected their opinions well. 2) 45.1% of employees participated in health education classes more than once. But only 15.6% of them considered the classes as very helpful. 21.1% of employers were much aware of health education schedule, and 44.2% reported that it was helpful for the prevention of occupational diseases. 3) 68.8% of employers were aware of the possibility of occupational diseases that could occur in their factories. And 36.5% of employers reported that some criteria were used for job reallocation to their employees. But only 9.7% of employees were assigned new job based on the result of health status examination. 4) 65.6% of employees were aware of the periodic evaluation for work environment, and 43.3% knew the evaluation results. Among participated SSE, 5.9% have a planning department for improving work environment, and 46.2% actually carried out the program for improving work environment. The findings showed that the employers and employees of SSE had insufficient knowledge of the occupational health program that have been employed in their workplace. It is essential to lead more active participation of employers and employees in their occupational health programs so as that the programs are to improve their health status as well as work environment more effectively.