Mineworkers' perspective of fatigue: A study of the Ghanaian mining industry

Accident research has shown that the leading causes of workplace accidents are organisational and human factors related in contrast to technical failure. Therefore, uncovering those organisational/human accident causal factors is important, as it could improve workplace health and safety conditions. Fatigue has been recognised as a major human factor contributor to accidents. In Ghanaian mines, fatigue is associated with over 50% of its accidents, indicating that fatigue remains an important issue confronting the industry. However, empirical research on fatigue within the mining industry is limited and completely lacking in Ghanaian mines. This research was therefore formulated to understand the fatigue experiences of mineworkers to identify improve-ment opportunities. A survey was conducted among 1131 workers in five large-scale gold mines in Ghana. One-way ANOVA showed that the mines had statistically significant differences in their fatigue score and low-fatigue mines were distinguished from high-fatigue mines. Similarly, one-way ANOVA test also showed that the fatigue causal factors differed significantly across the mines. It was found that the low-fatigue mines scored better on the causal factors than the high-fatigue mines, indicating that the low-fatigue mines offer some lessons for the high-fatigue mines. Overall, the study observed that some mineworkers have higher predispositions to fatigue than others and fatigue management interventions should target priority areas. Some of these priority areas have been identified, including mining operations and contractor workers, to support the prioritisation of fatigue man-agement interventions. The study presents some basis for the development of a fatigue management system in the industry.