Turkish airline cabin crew members’ attitudes towards protection from infectious diseases in the context of their health responsibilities and health perceptions

Abstract

Introduction: This paper investigated Turkish Airline cabin crew members’ attitudes towards protection from infectious diseases in the context of their health responsibilities and health perceptions. Materials and methods: The study adopted a descriptive research design. The sample consisted of 686 cabin crew members. Data were collected online using a sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire, a scale of attitudes towards infectious diseases, the Health Perception Scale(HPS), and the Health Responsibility subscale(HRS) of the Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Scale(HLBS). The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, v. 20.0). Number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, t-test, f test, and correlation were used for analysis. Results: Participants had a mean HPS and HRS score of 56.12 ± 8.22 and 24.50 ± 7.05, respectively. The difference between the participants' marital status, position in the workplace, age group, number of children, occupational experience, exposure to communicable diseases, training on prevention from communicable diseases, voluntary vaccination status, and HPS and HRS scores were statistically significant(p < .05). Conclusion: There was a strong correlation between HPS and HRS scores(r = 0.664). Cabin crew members’ health perceptions and health responsibilities were affected by numerous factors. Suggestions were made to cabin crew members pertaining to infectious diseases and ways of protecting from them.

Keywords

• Cabin crew
• Health perception
• Health responsibility
• Infectious diseases
• Prevention
• Attitude