Iranian Journal of

Background and Objective: A scientific questionnaire for assessing the knowledge, attitude and judgment of people on waste management by municipalities has not been developed so far. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to design and validation of an instrument to assess the knowledge, attitude and judgment of people on waste management by municipalities.
Materials and Methods: This analytical study was conducted in District 21 of Tehran in 2017. The initial items of the questionnaire were designed based on previous studies and opinions of the team of specialists and people. Then, the face validity and the content validity of the designed questionnaire was examined. The face validity and the content validity was examined qualitatively and quantitatively, respectively. Finally, the reliability of the attitude and knowledge and evaluation of municipal performance items were measured by Cronbach's alpha and a test-retest method, respectively.
Results: The initial questionnaire had 43 items. In the face validity, 8 items were removed and 8 items were edited. In quantitative content validity, 7 items were excluded, with the content validity index of less than 0.79 and the content validity ratio less than 0.49. Pearson correlation coefficient obtained for knowledge component equal to (r=0.77, p<0.0001) and for component performance (r=0.93, p<0.0001), respectively. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was equal to 0.89 for items attitudes, which were in an acceptable level.
Conclusion: The questionnaire can be used as a valid research instrument to collect information on knowledge, attitude and judgment of people on waste management by municipalities.
 

Background and Objective: Since people spend a lot of time indoors, assessment of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS)is the first step to improve working and living conditions in closed environments. This study wasconducted to evaluate the SBS symptoms among staff in Razi Hospital of Chalous, to identify the affecting environmental parameters on these symptoms and to provide solutions to reduce the symptoms of SBS.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conductedrandomly among 72 out of 240 hospital’s staff. Questionnaire MM040EA was used to collect demographic data, SBS symptoms and affecting environmental factors. Statistical analysis was carried out using Pearson’s Chi-squared test and Fisher's exact test in Excel software.
Results: 60% of people showed moderate to severe SBS symptoms. Fatigue, headache, and sneezing were the most common symptoms among staff, with 85%, 75%, and 63%, respectively. Significant correlation was observed between SBS symptoms and room temperature fluctuations (p <0.001), low ambient temperature (p = 0.037), unpleasant odor (p = 0.043) and gender (p = 0.011) with significance level of α=0.05.
Conclusion: Investigating the influence of work environmental related factors on the general symptoms of SBS as well as on fatigue, headache and sneezing symptoms showed room temperature fluctuation and unpleasant odor as the most important driving factors. These symptoms were mainly due to the improper air conditioning system operation at the hospital to control the temperature. Therefore, it is expected that the prevalence of SBS among staff can be reduced significantly by improving the ventilation system performance, especially in winter.

Background and Objective: The most important first step in promoting environmental performance is identifying and evaluating environmental behavior. In this regard the measuring tool is considered an environmental behavior questionnaire. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire before its application is essential. Thus this research was conducted with the aim of assessing the validity and reliability of questionnaires.
Materials and Methods: The environmental behavior questionnaire containing 36 questions was designed using the literature review and expert panel opinions. Then, the validity of the questionnaire was assessed by content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) and its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient by 14 experts and 40 target groups. Finally, data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software.
Results: The results showed that the questionnaire with 36 items had CVI and CVR of 0.896 and 0.726, respectively, and 4 items should be excluded from the questionnaire due to non-compliance with content validity indices. The questionnaire exhibited high internal consistency and hence was acceptable owing to the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.85.
Conclusion: The questionnaire was designed to evaluate environmental performance of citizens and can be cited in future studies.