Background Use of Personal protective equipment is one of the measures to reduce occupational injuries. Carpentry and welding are associated with occupational hazards, in the process of performing these tasks, they suffer from work related injuries due to low or no use of personal protective equipment. Despite the known importance of workers using Personal Protective Equipment, there is limited documentation in Uganda. We therefore sought to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices towards the use of personal protective equipment among carpenters and welders in Seeta, Mukono district. Methods A cross sectional descriptive was conducted among people engaged in welding and carpentry. We collected data using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Systematic simple random sampling was conducted to identify the study participants. Using Kish Leslie’s formula (Kish, 1959), we estimated the sample size of 152 respondents where 76 carpenters and 76 welders were interviewed. Four key informants were interviewed using key informant guide to understand the context of personal protective equipment use among the study participants. Quantitative data was collected using opened ended questionnaires and structured checklist embedded in android smartphones. For qualitative data, face to face interviews were conducted by the corresponding author. Quantitative data was entered in Epi-collect, cleaned and analyzed using STATA 13.0 and qualitative data was analyzed by conventional content analysis. Results Majority of the participants 96.7% (147/152) were males and the mean age was 31.42. Most of the participants 99.3% (151/152) reported to have heard about personal protective equipment and all reported that Personal Protective Equipment offers them protection (99.3%). Majority used boots/shoes 39.86% (61/152) where they reported using it while doing any work 78.29% (119/152). Being a carpenter (p=0.001) and never hearing about personal protective equipment (p=0.001) were statistically significant to always using a personal protective equipment at work places. Conclusions Our study highlighted that participants had good knowledge on the need to use of personal protective equipment at their workplace although few were having good practices of using them. We recommend the district local government authorities while enforcing the occupational health regulation should increase awareness among welders and carpenters in bid to protect their health.
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