Discussion:
This study revealed that 74.1% of the quarry workers had poor quality
of life. This finding could entail being dissatisfied with their work
and working condition which directly affects the morale of the workers
[29]. The quality of life of the workers is a vital element in the
organizational management and plays key role in the growth and continued
productivity of the organization. Therefore, deliberate efforts must be
put in place to improve and maintain satisfied quality of work life
among the workers as to ensure commitment and motivation on the part of
the workers [6]. The condition of work, policy on welfare of the
workers and every other organizational factor capable of impacting on
the workers wellbeing should be addressed among the quarry industries in
a timely manner [30]. One of such key approaches includes adequate
social support, proper working conditions, good remuneration and
psychological supports [31]. Low quality of life was also indicated
in other studies conducted among different group of workers
[26,32,33,31].
The result was contrary to the study done on accredited social health
activist in Malaysia which revealed that 60% of the participants
reported good quality of life [3]. This difference may be attributed
to condition of work at the various industries, technological
involvement, level of risk, health status of the workers, socio-cultural
context [35] and the availability of psychosocial supports across
countries [32]. Also, the relevance of the needs of the individual
workers have been reported to vary across culture and organizations
hence may account for the differences above [36].
Regarding the domains of the quality of life, the physical and
environmental domain had the highest scores which however remained low
on the 100% scale. These low scores may be accounted for by the poor
working conditions and health status [32].
More also, at univariant analysis using simple logistic regression,
certain independent variables showed significant association with
quality of life. The factors include age, type of work, monthly income,
level of pain, working with injury and work design. This is in agreement
with reports of other research studies [35,32,37,38, 39 10].
Moreover, the multivariable analysis of the independent variables showed
that two key independent variables, WRMSDs and poor work design remained
significantly associated with quality of life of the respondents. WRMSDs
is significantly associated with quality of life of the quarry workers
in this study with unadjusted odd (4.28) when those without WRMSDs was
used as reference. This therefore means that workers with WRMSDS have
high odd (4.28) of being dissatisfied with their quality of life
compared to those without WRMSDs. A few studies had reported a link
between poor quality of life with job dissatisfaction, safety at work
and low morale [11,40]. Therefore, appropriate preventive measures
against WRMSDs is implicated by this finding as to improve the quality
of life of the workers as well their commitment to organizational goal
since evidence shows negative effects on poor quality of life on
productivity at work [36]. This finding is in line with a study
among primary healthcare workers which reported a significant
association between health status and quality of life [33]. A
similar finding was also indicated in a study among industrial dwellers
in Poland in which their health status had significant association with
their quality of life [32] and a study among physical therapist in
Korea [41].
Poor work design also had remained significantly associated with the
quality of life of the workers. This implies that workers working in
poorly designed work environment were 3 times more likely to have poor
quality of life than those who work in well-designed workplace.
Therefore, the ergonomic design of the working units in the quarry
industries in Nigeria is a predictor of the highly dissatisfied quality
of life among the quarry workers. Previous study has reported the
reiteration among construction company workers of the need for improved
working environment for efficiency and improved health at work [42].
This study further confirms this reiteration. Similar study in Malaysia
showed that 80% of the respondents found their work environment and
work design as safe and adequate which is not comparable to the poor
workplace design reported in this study [8]. International Labour
Organization supported these findings that ergonomic principles of
automation, substitution, and enclosure must be implemented in addition
to ergonomic postural training of the workers to ensure safety at work
[38].
Study conducted in Taiwan reported that workplace design and other
environmental factors are sources of psychological threat and burnout
among workers; burnout has in turn been a significant predictor of poor
quality of life among workers [43]. This agrees with the result of
the present study among the quarry workers in Nigeria. These predictors
of quality of life need to be considered in developing interventional
programs to address the welfare of the quarry workers in Nigeria as
research evidence has attributed human performance at work to workplace
factors experienced by the workers [44].