reliability and validity of a safety climate questionnaire

background: it is believed that improved safety culture/climate is a fundamental element to accident prevention. therefore, development a scale to assess safety climate is a step towards accident control. the purpose of this study was to construct a persian safety climate questionnaire. methods: the study took place in tehran and esfahan oil refineries in iran in 2010. an initial questionnaire was formed from two previous studies. this tool was translated to persian based on back translation. the 61-item questionnaire was tested on operational staffs (n=324). principle component analysis and varimax with kaiser normalization was used to extract factors, in statistical software package spss 11.0. results: the factors were obtained as management commitment to safety and personnel collaboration 23 variables, 17.33 % of the variance, safety communication five items, 6.97% of the variance, supportive environment five items, 6.245% of the variance, work environment six items, 5.590% of the variance, formal training four items, 4.581% of the variance, priority of safety five items, 4.177% of the variance, personal priorities and need for safety three items, 3.333% of the variance. conclusions: achievement of a valid and reliable safety climate tool may bring enormous benefits to the refineries. however, a reliable and valid tool to measure safety climate could be useful in other refineries. moreover, the generic nature of the safety climate scale may grant its use for other workplaces.