Iran Occupational Health
Year:2011 | Volume:8 | Issue:1|Papers Count:13

Background and Aim: Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) performance measurement of the contractors and identification of the best ones can make a perception of the past changes in their HSE performance. Consequently, this may motivate them and provide an opportunity to improve their quality of services. The aim of this study is to rank the contractor-companies of one of the Iranian steel manufacturing companies considering their safety behavior and also to determine the best combination of contractors-companies.Method: safety behavior sampling method used to determine the status of unsafe acts. The fuzzy efficiency numbers of each input were ranked by Chen & Klein method. To obtain a final ranking AHP was applied. The obtained rankings by FIEP-AHP were compared to the ranking of DEA.Results: Results indicated that the most frequent unsafe behaviors were related to not-using or missusing the PPE, using broken tools and inappropriate working condition respectively. A significant relationship between experience, education and age with safety behaviors was obtained (p<0.05). Results showed that companies’ number 2 and 6 had respectively the best and worst ranks.Conclusion: Because FIEP increases the power of recognition especially when the number of DMUs is lower than inputs and outputs, it can be suggested as an appropriate model for determining the best contractor companies.

Background and Aim: In the absence of End of Service Life Indicator (ESLI), a cartridge change schedule should be established for ensuring that cartridges are changed before their end of service life. The aim of this study was determining the efficiency of respirator change schedule and presenting a suitable schedule for changing the cartridges before their end of service life in a petrochemical complex.Method: Required information for change criteria, number and time between changing the cartridges were gathered through the existing records in the industry. Also the highest values of measured environmental conditions were used as a worse case condition for estimation of service life of cartridges. Technical data and specification of used cartridges in the industry were collected through the cartridges manufactures. Manufacturer's service life software was used for estimation of cartridge service life and 10% of threshold limit values were considered for estimation of breakthrough time of cartridges.Results: The results show that there is no effective change schedule for respirator cartridges in the studied industry. Also there was a significant difference between current schedule and developed schedule for changing the respirators in the studied industry.Conclusion: Relying on odor thresholds and other warning properties solely as the basis for changing respirator chemical cartridges is not allowed and a change out schedule should be developed base on workplace conditions and specification of respirator cartridges.

Background and Aim: Agriculture is one of the oldest and high risk professions. Traditional agricultural production mainly depends on the physical power of farmers; thus, optimum efficiency in agriculture depends on the attention paid to the importance of certain measures to prevent diseases and accidents due to farming. This research was performed with the aim of survey of knowledge and attitude of farmers of Southern Khorasan province regarding agriculture related OHS issues in 2008.Method: In this cross-sectional study, 818 farmers were selected and a questionnaire that its validity and reliability had been approved was filled out through interviewing each subject. Data were analyzed using the SPSS program and appropriate statistical tests. p£0.05 was taken as the significant level.Results: 98% of the subjects were males and 2% females. Mean age of the subjects was 50.7±14.7 years with the mean working experience of 29±15.8 years. Knowledge score of farmers ranged from 10 to118 (out of 128) and their mean score was 89.55±15.58. Attitude score of farmers ranged from 81 to 141 (out of 145) and their mean score was 120.38±12.2. The correlation of mean knowledge score of farmers with education, age, and residence was statistically significant (p£0.05) but, there was no significant correlation considering sex and mean farming experience (p>0.05).Conclusion: Considering the obtained results, improving health knowledge of farmers through appropriate training programs is necessary.

Background and Aim: In the organization environment, staffs are under the neurotic and mental pressures that would have many adverse effects on their performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational culture, job satisfaction and job burn-out among the employees in Tabriz University.Method: The method of this research was descriptive-analytic. The research sample consisted of 106 subjects who were chosen through the stratified random sampling. All participants completed the Hofsted Organizational Culture Questionnaire (HOCQ) and Job Descriptive Index (JDI) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The results of the survey were analyzed by Pearson correlation method and T- test.Results: Obtained results indicated that the kind of Organizational Culture in Tabriz university was rational culture; in addition, the job satisfaction was not different between three kinds of organizational cultures (p>0.05), but, the job burn-out was different between three kinds of organizational cultures (p<0.05).In addition, the job satisfaction difference between didactic and administrative employees was not statistically meaningful (p>0.05) but the job burn-out difference between didactic and administrative employees was statistically significant (p<0.01). The results of T-Test showed that there was no significant difference between job satisfaction and job burn-out among female and male employees (p>0.05). Results also illustrated that there was a positive relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction (p<0.01). In addition, obtained results revealed that there was a negative relationship between organizational culture and job burnout (p<0.01). Clearly a negative relationship between job satisfaction and job burn-out was also identified (p<0.01).Conclusion: On the basis of this study, it was understood that the partnership organizational culture may lead to the maximum amount of job satisfaction and minimum amount of job burn-out.

Background and Aim: Ethylene oxide is used as a sterilizing agent in health care industries. The present study aimed to assess and recognize the nature of pulmonary reactions, if any, associated with occupational exposure to ethylene oxide and to investigate the prevalence of dermal, visual, neurologic, reproductive, hematologic, hepatic and renal disorders.Method: Forty exposed and 47 unexposed employees were evaluated. Subjects were interviewed and standard respiratory symptom questionnaire as well as a questionnaire pertaining to symptoms of intoxication with this chemical were administered to them. Furthermore, parameters of pulmonary function were measured during exposure and a few days after exposure ceased. Additionally, blood samples were taken for CBC, liver and kidney function tests. Moreover, atmospheric concentrations of ethylene oxide were determined by gas detector tubes.Results: Respiratory symptoms such as cough and phlegm as well as dermal, visual and neurologic symptoms in exposed workers were significantly more prevalent p£0.05. Furthermore, significant decrements in some parameters of pulmonary function during exposure as compared with the values measured after exposure ceased, were noted. Results of biochemical tests were similar in both groups. Mean atmospheric concentration of ethylene oxide was evaluated to be 1.24±1.5 ppm.Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that exposure to ethylene oxide even at low concentrations is associated with significant decreases in pulmonary parameters. However, this effect is acute, temporary and reversible. Conversely, exposure to ethylene oxide was not associated with hematotoxic, hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic response, although, dermal, visual and neurologic symptoms were observed.

Background and Aim: Falling from height is considered one of the most important risks in construction sites and many workers through non-compliance with safety tips lose their lives. This study was conducted in order to survey the relationship between safety climate factors and behavior of workers working in potentially dangerous situations in height among construction workers.Method: For evaluation of safety climate factors a safety climate questionnaire and for behavior of workers in potentially dangerous situations behavioral questionnaire including potentially dangerous situations, work on ladders and scaffolding has been used. Factor analysis to analyze safety climate factors and Binary logistic regression using SPSS software for the influence of factors on behaviors in potentially dangerous situations are used.Results: Factors of safety attitudes of workers, the level of risk in construction site and working relationships derived from factor analysis are 57% of the total variance. Situations of working on scaffold without Guard rail and protect the edges, access to the scaffold by going up and down connections and the ladder not secure are usually seen in the most construction sites.Conclusion: Results indicate that workers have awareness of work in dangerous situations but perhaps management ignorance of safety issues and not doing engineering controls to eliminate potentially dangerous situations can be mentioned as the causes of accidents as may result safety issues to be ignored by construction workers working in dangerous situations.

Background and Aim: Although sweepers are one of the high risk groups for HIV and HBV infections; nevertheless, there is a paucity of research into high risk behaviors of sweepers. The aim of this study was to determine occupational high risk behaviors leading to infection in sweepers who are working in district twenty, Tehran municipality.Method: This study is a descriptive-analytical type. A convenience sample included 400 sweepers working in district twenty, Tehran municipality were selected by simple sampling. Demographic and occupational high risk behavior lead to infection inventories were two instruments for collecting data in the present study. Reliability and validity of scales had estimated. Statistical analysis of data was performed with SPSS 16 software for Windows.Results: Thirty percents of sweepers had a history of needle stick injuries and 35/5% of them had a history of cuts of hand from blades existing rubbishes. %25/5 of sweepers had not action encounter to discarded syringes and needles in streets and other places.In the case of needle stick injury occurred, 2/5 percent of sweepers were washing damaged organ with clean water, 3/8% with soap and water and 7/8% with alcohol.0/5% of them were sent out blood of damaged organ with pressure, 11 percent reported the incident to a doctor to get postexposure treatment and 74/5% had not action.4/8% of sweepers never wear gloves for collecting garbage and only 54% of sweepers were using gloves regularly.4/8% of sweepers were never using boots when collecting garbage and only 41/5% of sweepers were using boots regularly.65 percent of sweepers reported that municipal contractors provides boots and gloves and 53 percents of them reported that these tools are unsafe and thin.Conclusion: Results of this study demonstrated that there are numerous occupational high risk behaviors which may lead to infection in sweepers. Educational talks were given to sweepers and municipal contractors on hazards, prevention and post-exposure prophylaxis to needle-stick injuries. Also, providing safety equipment including protective boots and gloves by municipal contractors for all sweepers is necessary.

Background and Aim: Building associated illnesses are a group of illnesses caused by physical or psychological conditions of workplace. One of these illnesses is sick building syndrome (SBS) which consists of a group of symptoms, including mucosal irritation, headache, fatigue, skin dryness and itching, and nausea that are temporally related to presence in a particular building. This study was designed to assess SBS and factors affecting it in central building of Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences.Method: This is a cross-sectional study on workers of central building of Shahid Sadoughi University of medical sciences. The prevalence of SBS was determined using self-administered indoor air quality (IAQ) questionnaire for office workers. All workers who worked at least one year in this building and had no other medical illnesses with similar symptoms to SBS, entered the study and the questionnaire was filled out for them. Data was analyzed using chi square test.Results: Prevalence of SBS among the workers of central building was 35.7% (34.8% in male and 36.9% in female workers). There was no significant association between prevalence of SBS and age, gender, duration of employment and level of education. The most frequent complaints mentioned by participants were fatigue and headache, and the most frequent causes were noise, inadequate physical space and crowded work environment.Conclusion: This survey showed a relatively high prevalence of SBS among office workers in this organization. So considering the effects of SBS on workers' function and productivity, it is recommended to reduce its causes, especially noise and inadequate space.