Effect of N95 Masks on Furniture-cutting Workers with Respiratory Symptoms
In a preliminary survey of furniture workers in 2017, 8 out of 15 workers reported that the wood-cutting process always led to tightness in their chest and made them cough. This is because the wood-cutting process produces dust and the workers do not use any personal protective equipment such as mask at work. Therefore, the aim of this study was to find the effect of wearing masks on the respiratory symptoms of woodcutters in Sentra Mebel Kemirahan, Malang. The researchers distributed N95 masks to all the workers. The research used a pre-experimental with one group pre- and post-test design. The study included a total of 21 people, selected through purposive sampling. Data were analysed using the Wilcoxon test. The result of pre–post-tests in every variable were: (i) P-value 0.000 for chest tightness; (ii) P-value 0.001 for cough; (iii) P-value 0.000 for chest pain, which is P ≤ 0.005, meaning significant. Therefore, we conclude that there was a difference between before and after using N95 mask against the respiratory symptoms in the wood-cutting workers in Sentra Mebel Kemirahan Malang. Keywords: subjective respiratory symptom, chest tightness, cough, chest pain, N95 mask