Factors Associated to Health Protection Against Pesticides among Jasmine Gardeners at Sila Sub-District, Muang District, Khon Kaen Province

Abstract

It is common for jasmine gardeners to use pesticides to protect their jasmines from insects. This study aimed to investigate the health protection against pesticides of jasmine
gardeners and the associated factors. The study design was cross-sectional analytical study. Data collection was conducted between March and April 2012 using observation and
interview with the structural questionnaire. The participants were 225 gardeners at Sila Subdistrict, Muang district, Khon Kaen province. The data were analyzed by using the STATA
Version 10.0 software program. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics which were univariate analysis and multivariate analysis were used to identify factors associated to self
protection against pesticides. Adjusted odds ratio (ORadj) and 95%CI were computed at a pvalue of < 0.05. The results showed that most of jasmine gardeners were male (68.4%), with
education background of primary school (63.1%), the mean age was 49.9 years old. Most gardeners had jasmine garden not larger than 800 m2 (64.9%) and the time period used for
spraying pesticide was not longer than 30 minutes (54.2%). More than half (58.7%) of the gardeners had high level of health protection during pesticides usage. And 56.0% of them
use personal protection equipments (PPE’s) such as long-sleeves shirt pants and boots (96.0%), hat (92.9%), glove (89.8%), and mask (88.4%). The percentages of gardeners who had
experienced pesticide poisoning and had good knowledge of self-protection from pesticides were 63.6% and 60.9%, respectively. The multivariate analysis identified the factors that
significantly associated to health protection against pesticide were areas where the gardens located, which were Moo 1 (ORadj=9.03, 95%CI=3.36-24.22) and Moo 28 (ORadj=4.01,
95%CI=1.54-10.45), high school education background (ORadj=3.64, 95%CI=1.33-9.97), siae of jasmine garden ≤ 800 m2 (ORadj=3.04, 95%CI=1.40-6.57), use of mixed chemical and organic
pesticide (ORadj=8.40; 95%CI=2.08-33.89), not using carbamate pesticides (ORadj=9.78; 95%CI=3.02-31.72), and good knowledge of self-protection (ORadj=9.12; 95%CI=3.20-26.00).
The findings identified factors associated to the protection from pesticides exposure among jasmine gardeners which were useful for occupational health service improvement
and creating awareness of the importance of PPE use. Moreover, there should also be the surveillance program and early diagnosis of chronic exposure to pesticide among jasmine
gardeners.