Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Risk assessment is a main tool in safety management process as it can help managers to choose corrective actions by providing appropriate information. The purpose of this paper was to select the optimal corrective actions among the proposed ones by the experts based on mathematical modeling, taking into account the standards and also the limitations including the cost.

Material and Method: In this paper, a model was presented to find the optimal corrective actions regarding the organization goals (maximum in risk reduction value) and the limitations such as cost and level of acceptable risk. Due to extensive number of solutions, Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used for solving the problem.

Result: To show the capability of this method in an industrial environment, a power generation industry with 40 hazards was considered as the case study. Then, the risk of hazards was estimated and corrective actions were determined for each of them. Using the proposed model, corrective actions were selected optimally, with the least possible cost; all risks were reduced below the level of organizational acceptable risk.

Conclusion: It was shown that the optimal corrective actions using mathematical modeling are selected with high precision in acceptable time. This method is suggested as an alternative for conventional qualitative methods based on expert’s opinions.

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Introduction: Evaluating environmental risks in the oil and gas industry is essential to prevent irreparable damage to the environment. Using classical methods for prioritizing environmental risks does not achieve high-reliable results. Therefore, the aim of this study is to minimize the limitations of classical methods in a typical oil and gas production zone, by using fuzzy logic and Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) approach.  
Material and Methods: After forming an identification and assessment team including experienced experts from different organizational units in a region of exploitation of oil and gas, values of each risk factor (likelihood of occurrence, severity and detectability) related to identified environmental risks are determined according to their qualitative opinions represented by linguistic variables. Relative weights of the risk factors are calculated by applying the group Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in a fuzzy environment on expert opinions. Then, fuzzy aggregation in the linear form by considering the weight of the risk factors and a method that is developed based on the center of gravity are employed in evaluation and ranking of the risks.
Results: In this study, the severity factor has the most important contribution in risk assessment compared to the other risk factors, since it has the highest relative weight. Raw sewage aspect resulted from absence of appropriate treatment system has the highest priority and spilling over of acid that is caused by chiller cleaning stands at the second position in the identified environmental risks.
Conclusion: The results demonstrate that although the proposed methodology requires greater time than classical methods, it is able to determine the risk ranking more practically because of minimizing the limitations of classical methods: high sensitivity to judgmental errors, considering some risks in the same index group and ignoring uncertainty in experts’ opinions. Proposed method is a proper alternative for classical environmental risk assessment technique, and capable of prioritization and evaluation risks in terms of safety and health.

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Introduction: Burnout dimensions include the emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP) and personal accomplishment (PA).
Materials and Methods: The information was obtained from searching standard Persian and English keywords in accessible databases including: Scopus, Magiran, SID, Science Direct  and  PubMed from database commencement to April 2017. Data  Analysis was performed using Stata version 11.1., and p value was considered less than 0.05.
Results: In the systematic review 43 studies met the inclusion criteria, and 9456 people were evaluated. The prevalence of burnout was calculated in any of the three dimensions of burnout. The prevalence of the Emotional Exhaustion (EE) dimension of burnout was%36 (%95CI: 29-42), the Depersonalization (DP) dimension was%23 (%95CI: 18-29) and the Personal Accomplishment (PA) dimension was%46 (%95CI: 39-53). Based on the type of the job, the maximum prevalence of the EE, DP and PA dimensions was in librarians 67% (%95CI:40-93), university staff 51% (14-88) and dentists 72%(%95CI:65-79), respectively. Meta regression results showed that there was no significant relationship between the year of publication and the prevalence of burnout.
Conclusion: According to the prevalence of burnout in Iran and the high prevalence of the PA dimension, it is recommended to consider mediating strategies for reducing and controlling stressful occupational events and burnout in organizational schedule.

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Introduction: Compared to other hospital departments, emergency department (ED) nurses experience higher levels of occupational fatigue. However, despite the importance of fatigue in EDs, limited studies have investigated the issue. Therefore, the present study aimed to identify factors affecting ED nurses’ fatigue with a systemic approach and provide a comprehensive model of fatigue.
Material and Methods: The present study was the first phase of a mixed-methods study with an exploratory sequential design that was conducted qualitatively. Data was collected using a semi-structured interview technique among ED nurses in TUMS hospitals in Tehran. The data was analyzed with a systematic approach and qualitative content analysis method. To check the credibility and trustworthiness of the study results, Goba and Lincoln criteria, including transferability, peer review, and member check, were used.
Results: Extensive factors were identified in the four levels of nurses’ work system, including individual factors, work unit, organization, and extra-hospital factors that could facilitate or prevent nurse fatigue. Specifically, the categories that were mentioned the most by the nurses were aggression and conflict with visitors, ED workload, understaffing, crowding and noise, obligatory overtime, acknowledgement, visitor’s expectations, reporting (paperwork), and clients’ distrust of nurses. Finally, based on the qualitative results, a conceptual model of factors affecting occupational fatigue of ED nurses in Tehran was presented.
Conclusion: Traditionally, fatigue management programs in hospitals only consider issues related to work shifts and sleep hygiene. However, the results of the present study revealed other fatiguing factors in the work system of ED nurses. These findings can help health system decision makers and HFE experts in designing effective fatigue risk management systems in Iranian hospitals, especially in emergency departments.