EFFECTIVENESS OF A PARTICIPATORY ACTION ORIENTED TRAINING INTERVENTION APPROACH AMONG HARVESTERS IN OIL PALM PLANTATION
- 1 Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
- 2 Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
- 3 Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia
- 4 Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
- 5 Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
- 6 School of Mechatronic Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia
- 7 Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
Abstract
Consistent with the global demand for palm oil, the intensified upstream harvesting activities of oil palms’ fresh fruit bunches, despite the harvesters evidences of various ergonomics risk factors leading to musculoskeletal disorders should be a cause for concern. Thus, this study describes the effectiveness of a modified and locally adapted Participatory Action-Oriented Training intervention program in improving the working environment of the harvesters. A training program modified and customized to the harvesters’ working in oil palm plantation consist of 3 primary instrument (awareness video, interactive lecture and action checklist) with 3 reinforcing activities (to increase knowledge, enhance understanding and practical application). Based on the result of post-intervention assessment, the self-reported prevalence of MSD and KAP score among Intervention Group (IG) did not significantly differ from Control Group (CG). Instead of decreasing, the prevalence of MSD in the past 12 months and 7 days increased within IG. Qualitative findings in this research show that the negative psychosocial and organizational climate has severely affected the implementation of PAOT rendering the effect of the intervention approach. The interventions were ineffective on the IG as this study suffers from various situational barriers as obstacles to benefit the full extent of PAOT advantages.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajassp.2014.681.693
Copyright: © 2014 Ng Yee Guan, Shamsul Bahri Mohd Tamrin, Ismi Arif Ismail, Gede Pramudya Ananta, Zailina Hashim, Irwan Syah Mohd Yusoff, Baba Md Deros, Shahriman Abu Bakar and Azmin Sham Rambely. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- 5,130 Views
- 2,975 Downloads
- 2 Citations
Download
Keywords
- Participatory Action-Oriented Approach
- Intervention
- Ergonomics
- Harvester
- Oil Palm Plantation