Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Following the presentation of Domino model by Heinrich in 1931 this idea was formed that human is the most important cause of accidents. According to Heinrich, unsafe behavior (88%), unsafe condition (10%) and unexpected factors (2%) are involved in accidents causation. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigates workers safety, culture and its influencing factors in detergent and cleaner company.

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Material and Method: In order to determine the level of safety culture in the understudy detergent producing company a questioner developed in 2010 was used. It was included dimensions of management commitment, training and information exchange, protective environment, inhibitory factors and priority to safety. After collecting the questionnaires, data were analyzed using SPSS version 17.

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Result: The mean age of the participants of 37.5 years old and the mean work experience 13.7 years. 52.3 % of workers had not experienced any accident during their working year. Moreover, mean (SD) score of safety culture was 180.51 (±35.216).

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Conclusion: The difference of safety culture score were statistically different among occupational groups and also between workers with and without accidents.

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Introduction: Traffic noise has been thought as a major environmental stress in modern societies, and the cause of physiological and psychological disorders according to the World Health Organization. Moreover, traffic noise can interfere with mental performance. However, there is little coherent evidence showing the effect of traffic noise on individuals’ performance. Hence, this paper aimed to address the role of traffic noise in participants’ mental performance considering the complexity of the activity.
 

Material and methods: Thirty-five master students studying in Tehran University of Medical Science were recruited for this study. Traffic noise was recorded by tape recorder and the traffic noise level was simultaneously measured by sound meter. Then, participants had been separately sitting in silent compared to traffic noise environment before they performed the tests including “S₃”-type Choice Reaction Time (CRT) test as a simple activity and “S1”-type Determine Test (DT) as a complex activity taken from “Vienna Test System” software package.
 

Results: The comparison between scores resulted from DT and CRT tests ,before and after exposure to traffic noise under simple activity conditions, showed that there was little increase in mean score of reaction time (P-value=0.47) and motor time (P-value=0.49), showing no statistically significant changes in these variables. On the contrary, following exposure to traffic noise, the DT test under complex activity condition revealed that there is a clear decreasing trend in median reaction time(P=0.001), number of stimuli (P=0.014) and number of reactions (p=0.009) in participants, and also, no significant differences were found in correct responses (P=0.091) and incorrect responses (P=0.073).
 

Conclusion: One of the most significant findings emerged from this study is that traffic noise seems to have no effect on the mentioned variables under simple activity condition. However, traffic noise has devastating effects on median reaction time, number of appeared stimuli and reactions under complex activity condition.

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Introduction: Impairment of alertness, attention and performance associated with sleepiness and fatigue in nurses occur in night and long-term shifts that in the end of night shift reach to the maximum level can lead to traffic accidents when they returning home. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of night shift on psychomotor abilities of driving in nurses after shiftwork.
 

Material and Method: A cohort study was carried out on 23 night shift and 24 day shift female nurses aged 20 to 40 at Sina Hospital in Tehran city, using the Vienna Test System (VTS). The concentration and selective attention, reaction time, pheriperal perception, and coordination before and after night and day shifts were measured. A multiple linear regression model and Backward stepwise selection method was used for analyses.
 

Result: In the concentration and selective attention test, sum hits  (p = 0.038) and in the visual perception test , divided attention (p =0.006) and visual field (p =0.019), and in the  reaction time test the mean motor time  (p =0.034) showed a significant adverse relationship with working in night shift, but the visomotor coordination variables did not show any significant correlation.
 

Conclusion: The results showed that the concentration and selective attention, peripheral perception, and reaction time of psychomotor ability of driving were significantly adversely impaired in nurses after night shift. These results in evidence of the mechanism of increasing traffic accidents after night shift among nurses added to the previous studies in this subject.

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Introduction: Determining methods for assessing heat stress in different work environments is one of the major challenges for researchers in this field. The purpose of this study was to validate WBGT index and heat pressure assessment (HPA) by some physiological responses in Iranian South Oil Company.
Material and Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was carried out on 154 employees of Kharg, Asalouyeh and Mahshahr oil terminals recruited from three different working conditions including indoor, outdoor and rest environments in the summer. The amount of heat stress in the workplace was evaluated by WBGT index HPA method. To meet this purpose, the environmental parameters i.e., temperature, wet temperature, radiation temperature, relative humidity, water vapor pressure and air flow rate were determined. In addition to the direct reading method by the WBGT meter, ISO 7243 was used to calculate the WBGT index. In order to validate the heat stress indicators, physiological parameters of oral temperature, tympanic temperature and work metabolism were measured.
Results: The results of paired sample t-test showed a significant difference between WBGT index and HPA in indoor and outdoor environment (P<0.05). Moreover, there was a significant difference between the physiological indices of oral and tympanic temperatures and work metabolism in the indoor and outdoor environment (P<0.05). Furthermore, the correlation test was significant between WBGT index as an independent variable and HPA as a dependent variable (P<0.05)  and showed a high correlation (R2=0.914) between WBGT index with oral temperature and tympanic temperature . Also, the rate of work metabolism was significantly related with the aforementioned parameters (P<0.05) and was equal to R2=0.423, R2=0.335, R2=0.552, respectively. The correlations were also significant between HPA with Oral temperature, tympanic temperature and work metabolism (P<0.05)and were equal to R2=0.632, R2=0.605, R2=0.557, respectively. The results showed also that the correlation rate between the HPA with physiological parameters is stronger than that between physiological parameters with the WBGT index.
Conclusion: This study showed that WBGT and HPA methods are useful for assessing the heat stress of Iranian South Oil Company. Also, the HPA method is more reliable for assessing heat stress in these regions.

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Introduction: Obesity and overweight are major global health challenges. One of the bad effects of noise that has been recently expressed is the effect of noise on obesity. This study aimed to investigate the effect of high-frequency noise exposure on obesity, food intake, and abdominal visceral fat in adult male guinea pigs.
Material and Methods: The animals in this study were 24 adult male guinea pigs randomly divided into 3 groups (control and two case groups). Each case group was separately exposed to high- frequency white noise with sound pressure levels in 65 dB and 85 dB for 5 days per week in 30 days. The food intake was measured daily. The weight of animals was measured at the start and on days 6, 12, 18, 24, and at the end of exposure period. The abdominal visceral fat was extracted and weighted at the end of the study period. The data were assessed using SPSS V.22 software.
Results: ANOVA analysis showed that exposure to high-frequency noise at 65dB and 85dB had a significant effect on weight gain, food intake, and abdominal visceral fat weight (P-value< 0.05) which in the group exposed to the noise with 65 dB was more than other groups.
Conclusion: Based on this study, exposure to high-frequency noise may be an effective factor in obesity and increasing abdominal visceral fat. Further studies are needed to investigate the mechanism affecting weight status following noise exposure.