International Journal of Occupational Hygiene
Year:2018 | Volume:10 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the leading occupational disease imposing the health of working population among developed and developing countries. This study determined the magnitude and associated factors of LBP among garment industry workers in Eastern Oromia, Ethiopia. This institutional cross-sectional study was conducted from the 5th Jan to Apr 2015 on Garment industry workers in Eastern Oromia, on 422 participants. A face-to-face interview was used to collect quantitative data and the Nordic Questionnaires to measure the outcome of interest, LBP, as a worker experiencing self-reported musculoskeletal symptoms in the lower back were defined by aches, pain, or discomfort during the last 12 months. All the questionnaires have been checked visually, coded and entered into SPSS. The magnitude of self-reported LBP was 64. 9%. Workers, those had a longer working experience were 2 up to 10 times the chance to have developed workrelated LBP than those with shorter work experience. The magnitude of work-related LBP among garment industry is high. Therefore, government, the owner of the companies and other stockholders should focus on the prevention and control of occupational risk factors for work-related LBP in the garment industries.

Low back pain (LBP) due to lumbar disk herniation could collaborate with various risk factors. In this study, we focused on analysis of lumbar disk herniation risk factors in patients with LBP. This comparative cross-sectional study was conducted in Hamedan-western Iran in 2014-2015. Overall, 58 cases with evidence of lumbar disk hernia were classified as a case group and 47 cases without evidence of lumbar disk herniation were classified as a control group. The data collection was performed by using a questionnaire and the statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS software. The analytic results indicated a meaningful correlation between demographic variables as body mass index (BMI) mean, occupation type and lumbar disk hernia (P<0. 05). Furthermore, the abdominal circumference and the average heavy load carried by the participants throughout a day had a significant relationship with lumbar disk herniation (P<0. 05). There are multiple risk factors for lumbar disk hernia regarding a combination of genetics and acquired characteristics and lifestyle.

This study evaluated the safety attitude and determined its predictor individual and organizational variables among nurses. This cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 295 nurses working in hospitals affiliated to the Babol University of Medical Sciences, northern Iran (at 6 hospitals) from Oct 2016 to May 2017. The required data was collected using two questionnaires of demographic and organizational information and Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ). The data were analyzed using the SPSS Ver. 23 software. A logistic regression model (Backward: LR) was also used to investigate the effect of predictor personal and organizational factors on the studied nurses' attitude of safety. The highest and lowest scores in the dimensions of the SAQ questionnaire were respectively related to the stress recognition dimension (73. 57 ± 17. 93) and management perception dimension (48. 79 ± 16. 17). Based on the Pearson correlation, a significant correlation was established between the six dimensions of the questionnaire except for the stress recognition dimension. In addition, the most important individual-organizational factors affecting the attitude of the studied nurses included gender, training, work experience, education, and type of the ward. Since among the individualorganizational variables affecting the attitude of safety, the nurses' training can be acquired, it is recommended to hold regular safety courses along with an assessment after the training to improve the safety attitudes, and consequently, reduce the occupational accidents for nurses.

Inherently Safer Design (ISD) is served as an important and crucial step for Industrial Safety Management Systems. It is simpler, cheaper, and more efficient to eliminate and/or reduce inherent hazards. However, uncertainty, relativity, ambiguousness, and quality/quantity transformations disrupt the implementation of ISD. As advantages of fuzzy reasoning, naming problems can be resolved in order to have a justified and sophisticated decision making about Inherently Safer Design Assessment. Accordingly in this paper, ISD four principles: 1. Elimination/Substitution, 2. Minimization, 3. Moderation, and 4. Simplification enters the Fuzzy Mamdani system: Fuzzy ISD Index (FISDI) to accomplish Fuzzy Inherently Safer Design Assessment. Inputs and outputs of the FISDI range from 0 to 100 and are categorized in 5 triangular membership functions. The proposed FISDI is applied for the acetic acid production unit. The unit is divided into 7 zones, the four principles based checklist is provided for each zone, and the FISDI is computed for each zone, then the total FISDI is computed for the unit. The results show that the minimum, maximum and total FISDIs equal to 29, 72 and 45. 1 correspondingly. The whole plant FISDI data is compared to the classic ISDI. The cross-validation accomplished via CFtool in MatLab presents the mean slope of 0. 7181 and mean R2=0. 7885 which is a justified curve fitting within the scope of the study philosophy_70% of the ISD. The FISDI mainly underestimates the aggregative ISDI. It is noted that the most conformed and the least conformed zone cross-validations are determined as Zone 4 and Zone 7 respectively.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) suffer from occupational stress. This stress has adverse effects on individual and organization. This factor can be impose irreparable damage to the health care organizations and ultimately reduce job performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of occupational stress on the performance of HCWs. This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in 2017, by-census on 400 health-care workers of one of the public hospitals in Gorgan, Iran. Data was collected using Osipow's Occupational Stress Questionnaire and Paterson's Job Performance Questionnaire. Descriptive, analytical statistics and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was analyzed by SPSS v. 22 and LISREL 8. 72. The highest and lowest effect of stressful factors on job performance were related to physical environment (β =0. 89, p<0. 001) and the role insufficiency (β =0. 43, p<0. 001) respectively. The overall dimensions of occupational stress explained 73% of changes in the variance of job performance of HCWs (R-squared=0. 73). One of the important interventions can be focusing on the improvement of the physical conditions of the workplace and maintaining this at standard levels.

Sickness absenteeism is a major problem among organizations and healthcare units, causing loss of workhours and reduced productivity in workplaces. Previous studies have shown that several factors are associated with sickness absenteeism, including social conditions, workplace/organizational conditions, and employees' characteristics. Other studies have shown that psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, as well as musculoskeletal disorders are the main causes of medical absenteeism. The present study was designed to investigate sickness absenteeism in the employees of an auto plant in order to evaluate the occupational health of the employees based on the basic indicators of absenteeism. An institutional-based cross-sectional study was organized in 2016 to evaluate the intensity of sickness absenteeism and its associated factors among auto plant employees in Tehran, Iran. Stratified sampling and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the participants. Data was collected from questionnaires, medical records, and employees' attendance system. Multivariable analyses were employed to investigate the effect of the explanatory variables on the dependent variable. The frequency of medical absenteeism among employees was 11. 3%. According to the results, 26. 8% of medical absenteeism was more than 15 days. Smoking and workplace groups were significantly associated with sickness absenteeism. Our study found that smoking and working in the Trunk 1 Department of the auto plant were significant risk factors for sickness absence among employees. In general, absenteeism is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon in real need of evaluation to identify and control its effective factors.

Low-frequency noise is annoying even at lower levels and affects cognitive functions of individuals. Some individual differences, such as sensitivity, can reduce or increase the effects of noise on cognitive performance. This study investigated the effect of noise sensitivity on cognitive performance in the presence of low-frequency noise. In this experimental study, 120 fourth-year seniors in the field of health sciences year from Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Iran were selected through purposive sampling (60 students with high sensitivity and 60 students with low sensitivity). All the participants were exposed for 40 min to the noise levels of 50, 60, and 70 dB at the frequencies of 125 and 250 Hz, during which, the cognitive performance of the subjects was examined using the Integrative Visual-Auditory Continuous Performance Test (IVA CPT). Data were analyzed by independent t-test, and ANOVA test in SPSS 20. 0 software. The low-frequency noise negatively affected the components of cognitive performance so that with increasing the sound pressure level (SPL) from 50 to 70 dB and from 125 to 250 Hz (P<0. 05), the components of cognitive performance decreased. The results also showed that in female subjects with high sensitivity, cognitive performance components were more affected than the male subjects with low sensitivity (P<0. 05). The components of attention and work quality reduced with increasing SPL, and this negative effect of low-frequency noise was higher in women with high sensitivity.

Workers in welfare centers have to work more than other people, which may lead to job burnout. The present study was conducted to analyze the relationship between workload and burnout dimensions among the employees in health centers of Gonabad City, eastern Iran. In this descriptive-analytic study, a total number of 100 healthcare workers from the Welfare Organization of Gonabad City were selected to investigate the association between their workload and occupational burnout using the NASA-TLX questionnaire and the Maslach-Jackson Inventory. The data were analyzed by Chi-square, Pearson correlation, and one-way ANOVA in SPSS 22 software. Among the healthcare workers of the Welfare Organization, nurses had the highest rate of burnout in terms of efficiency (67. 9± 21. 3). They had the lowest rate of burnout in terms of exhaustion and frustration (37. 05± 24. 23), and moderate burnout in terms of mental pressure, physical pressure, time pressure, and effort (63. 40± 26. 17, 58. 75± 23. 78, 60. 30± 21. 72 and 61. 54± 26. 31). Considering the findings of the study and the importance of the health care profession, it is of the utmost importance to address the problems of healthcare workers in the Welfare Organization. Accordingly, the authorities must take the necessary steps to suit the environmental, managerial, and personnel conditions to them.