Volume :

4

Issue :

1

Abstract :

Background of the study Occupational health is branch of community medicine which deals with the effects of occupation on health. Every occupation is associated with one or other ill effects on health. One such occupational group is cotton workers. Generally cotton dust is found in the air when handling or processing cotton. Cotton and synthetic textile industry in India is the largest industry in the country accounting for 20 percent of industrial output and providing employment to around 20 million workers. The workers are at risk of suffering from various chronic respiratory illnesses including byssinosis. AIM: The aims are to enhance safety and care to the cotton mill workers in relation to occupational hazards; and to support public health programmes by providing reliable, balanced information for the effective assessment of occupational hazards and its prevention. Methodology The pre-experimental, one group pre-test-post-test design was used to evaluate the knowledge of 60 cotton mill workers regarding Byssinosis disease. The structured questionnaire schedule was used to collect the data from the respondents. The pre-test was followed by implementation of structured teaching programme and post-test was conducted on 7th day after STP, to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching programme. Result The overall mean knowledge score of post-test 90.57% with the SD of 10.08 is comparatively greater than the overall mean knowledge score of pre-test 41.72% with the SD of 11.60. Further, the enhancement of the overall mean knowledge score is 48.85% with the SD of 14.38%. Paired ‘t’ test has been computed to find the significant difference between mean knowledge score of pre-test and post-test are found to be significant at 0.001 level (t = 26.3103). Therefore the finding reveals that the planned teaching programme on Byssinosis disease was effective teaching in improving the knowledge of cotton mill workers. Hence, the stated hypothesis is accepted. Conclusion After analyzing the gathered information, the researcher got to know the facts about knowledge of Cotton mill workers regarding prevention of Byssinosis disease. Based on the outcome of the study, following suggestions are made to the various fields of nursing such as nursing practice, nursing education, nursing administration and nursing research.