Knowledge, attitude, and practice on using personal protective equipment of rattan craftsmen in trade village at Kienxuong district, Thaibinh province, Vietnam

Craftsmen, working with rattan sulfur-bleaching process in household rattan industry have directly exposed to sulfur dioxide causing several adverse health problems. The aim of this study were (1) to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice on using personal protective equipment (PPE) of rattan craftsmen to protect them from health effect of sulfur dioxide and (2) to confer the recommendations and guidelines for decreasing health effect related to sulfur dioxide exposure in rattan sulfur-bleaching process. Using Cross-sectional analytic study, 403 rattan craftsmen from a trade village in Kienxuong district, Thaibinh province, Vietnam were interviewed by face to face questionnaire. The results indicated that the prevalence of good knowledge and appropriate attitude was low equal 3.7% and 4.2% respectively. The prevalence of using respirator was 29%. Furthermore, the knowledge was associated with socio-demographic characteristics (Chi-square test, p<0.05) such as age group, gender, level of education and family income. The attitude was associated with age group (Chi-square test, p<0.05) and level of education (Chi-square test, p<0.01), meanwhile family income associated with the respirator using (Chi-square test, p<0.01). Additionally, most of the craftsmen knew that burning sulfur causes a poisonous gas; only few of them knew exactly the name of the poisonous sulfur pollutants gas. 91.6% of the participants have known that rattan sulfur-bleaching process can cause harmful effect to their health, 80% of the participants received the knowledge information by family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues; while the left participants received from radio. Among 71.2% participants had at least one symptom during last year such as cough (93.4%), sore throat (52.3%), eyes red (27.2%), and the left symptoms including running nose or stuffy, shortness breath, wheezing. Eventually, the study proposed the appropriate recommendations, strategies, and guidelines to decrease health effects for individual craftsmen, community, and local government authorities.