Journal of Health and Safety at Work

Introduction: The present study was carried out to compare contrast sensitivity among three groups of professional welders including (1) those who use gas metal Arc welding (GMAW) (2) those who use shield metal Arc welding (SMAW) and the group that uses resistance welding.
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Material and Method: In this research, all the welders who use GMAW, SMAW and resistance welding working in an industry who were all male, performed contrast sensitivity test, using Freiburg. The contrast sensitivity test was done at three spatial frequency of 1cpd, 5cpd and 15 cpd under a constant condition. The three selected groups were similar regarding age and work experience. The result of the three groups at each spatial frequency were recorded and compared with other groups.
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Results: ANOVA test showed that decrease contrast sensitivity in spatial frequency of GMAW group at the spatial frequency 15cpd, significantly decrease comparing to SMAW group (p=0.028) and resistance welding group (p=0.041). The mean (SD) of contrast sensitivity at frequency of 1cpd, 5cpd and 15cpd was respectively 140.69±51.8, 172.7±43.75 and 39.8±25.92 for the GMAW group and 157.8±42.2, 183.21±32.01 and 60.57±54.30 for the SMAW group and 149.10±50.68, 180.60±35.42 and 57.38±39.22 for resistance welding.
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Conclusion: Although all welders use goggle or other personal protective equipment, loss of contrast sensitivity of GMAW workers can be attributed to the cumulative effects of the radiation.

Introduction: Safety culture is considered as the core of an organization’s safety management system. Safety culture is an organization ability to achieve higher standards of safety. The aim of this study was to investigate safety culture and its influencing factors and relation to the accident in a dam construction project.

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Material and Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 130 workers at a dam construction project. A standardized questionnaire included 59 questions was used to determine the level of safety culture. The accidents occurred in the project during the year were collected based on demographic characteristics. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 19.

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Result: The mean age of the subjects, their work experience and score of safety culture were 35.05, 7.5 Years and 183.2, respectively. Twenty seven accidents were recorded during the year in project. The most common cause of the accidents was indiscretions (33.3%). There was a statistically significant correlation between safety culture to occurred accidents and history of accident (P<0.05). The percentage of a positive safety culture of workers with an experience of accident (71.8%) was more than that of those with no experience of accident (45.1%). There was not a statistically significant correlation between safety culture and age, work experience, education, and marital status.

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Conclusion: It seems that safety culture on the project is influenced by the experience of accident and also it was strongly significant with the occurred accidents. Consequently, in order to create a positive safety culture in the workplace many factors including safety education program, work experience and accidents analysis should be considered.

Introduction: The present study aimed to test a model of the relationship between management commitment to safety and consciousness with unsafe performance,considering the mediating role of safety self-efficacy.

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Material and Method: Research design was the correlation throughStructural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the sampleconsisted of 265 employees of an industrialcompany who were selected by stratifiedrandom sampling method. Participants of this study completedsafety climatescale, short form of NEO personality questionnaire,safety self-efficacy scale, and unsafe performance questionnaire.Reliability and validity of the questionnaires were reported as acceptable. Evaluation of the proposed model was done by SEM through AMOS-21and SPSS-19 software packages. In addition, Preacher and Hayes’ SPSS Macro program was used for testing the mediating role.

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Result: The results showed that the proposedmodel fit the data properly.Management commitment to safety and consciousness had direct effect on unsafe performance and safety self-efficacy.Moreover, the mediating effect of safety self-efficacy in the relationship between management commitment to safety and consciousness with unsafe performancewas confirmed.

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Conclusion: Overall, organizations canreduce unsafe performance and consequently occupational accidentsby increasing the management commitment to safety and employees’ consciousness and also training of employees and supervisors to reinforce their safety self-efficacy.

Introduction: Prevention of accidents and work related diseases, are not allowed regardless of the safety of employees, customers, contractors and other persons. Assessment of individual safety management activities could reduce many losses. Present study aimed to evaluate the safety management of a household appliance manufacturing company.

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Material and Method: This study has done in a household appliance manufacturing company in Damavand city. Two questionnaires were firstly designed based on the weighted scores. The questionnaire 1 consisted of 4 indicators: Safety of machinery, Electrical safety, Risk assessment and Fire safety. Questionnaire 2 consisted of 11 sub indicators. Both questionnaires were completed by 30 HSE experts and supervisors. Reliability of questionnaires was based on cronbachs alpha coefficient. the safety status of each unit was determined and scored using information acquired by the questionnaires. Lastly, the safety of the entire company was determined.

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Result: Results showed that in safety management: the pressing and store house were in a good range of 66.66 and 60.12 points. Powder painting, enameling, laboratory were in a average range of 56.25, 55.92 and 54.15 points. Assembling and door storage were in a week range of 46.06 points.

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Conclusion: The findings showed that the safety status in the studied appliances company is in average range with 55.45 points. Therefore, it is recommended that the safety indicators should be improved for the betterment of the safety management in the company.

Introduction: Resilience engineering is a new approach in safety science. Its goal is to maintain organizational capacity in an acceptable level to help system in managing the crisis. Indeed, resilience engineering rely on systems abilities instead of weaknesses, and try to find indicators that help the system durability.

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Material and Method: In this study,first, 6 resilience engineering factors were chosen and sent toexperts in the form of paired comparison sheets. On the other hand, a valid standard questionnaire distributed among drilling rigs operational workers for measuring the NIDC resilience level. Finally,the priority of corrective actionswas determinedaccording to the score of the two analyzedquestionnaires.

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Results: The results of resilience engineering factors weighting showed that the management commitment has the highest value andthe second place belonged to the correct culture. The indicators’scores,based on the distributed questionnaires among workers, showed that all of the six factors had similar scoreswhich can be evaluated as fairly good. Finally, the results of prioritization of indicators ofresilience engineering, basedon the combination ofthe questionnaire and experts opinions showed that management commitment is the most effective resilience factor in the organization. .

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Conclusion: Management commitment and the current culture are the most importantcontributing factorsin company resilience level. Experienced workforce was the best strengthof the company and the effect of financial issues on resilience and safety was the biggest problem ahead.

Introduction: Nowadays in all human societies, sport is considered as a human-training matter, which often occurs in sport fields. Many people, including students in schools, occasionally deal with these fields. Therefore, a standard tool is required to frequently inspection of sport fields. The aim of this study was to standardize checklists for sport fields in schools.

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Material and Method: This study is a kind of tool and technique evaluation was done in Zanjan in 2013. The studied population included indoor and outdoor sport fields in governmental boys’ high schools in Zanjan city. The checklists’ items selected based on existing regulations, standards and relevant studies. Standardization of all tools was done applying the face and content validity and reliability tests.

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Result: The primary checklist for outdoor sport fields in high schools, which considered by the expert panel, consisted of 75 items. Based on CVI (2 to 3.9) and CVR (.5 to .78), modifications were done and 6 more items were added. And the same process for the primary checklist for outdoor sports fields (85 items) was repeated. Based on CVI (2 to 3.9) and CVR (.5 to .78), items increased to 92.

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Conclusion: The safety checklist for sport fields in schools are matched with the properties of them. The safety checklist developed in this study has an acceptable reliability and validity for useful applying in sport field inspections.

Introduction: Patient safety is an important issue in regard to hospital servicesand any problem can cause adverse consequences. The purpose of this study was to assess the patients’safety culture at educational hospitals in Tehran.

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Material and Method: The present descriptive-cross sectional study was carried out among 312 health care workers in Baharloo, Amir Aalam, Shariati and Sina hospitals in Tehran, which were selected by cluster sampling. The participants were chosen randomly in each cluster. Safety Culture Survey questionnaire including 12 dimensions was used to assess patient safety culture. Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest coefficient were estimated 81 and 79 percent, respectively.

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Result: Nurses comprised 61 percent of participants in the study. 42% of staff had less than 5 years work experience. Of the 12 dimensions of patient safety culture, the frequency of reporting and exchange of information had the minimum average of 56 and 55, respectively. Moreover, the dimensions of organizational learning and expectations-management measuresobtained the highestmean score (69)among 12 dimensions of patient safety culture. Total mean patient safety culture in understudy hospitals was 63.

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Conclusion: It should be noted that paying more attention to the patient safety culture can lead to improve hospitals condition, as a whole, and to have a patient-friendly environment. Special attention should be paid to dimensions with the lowest mean score in order to strengthen them.

Introduction: Neighborhood environment plays an important role in the health of residents. This study was conducted to assess health, safety and environment (HSE) in poor and rich vicinities in order to improve health levels of the neighborhoods, using Community-Based Intervention (CBI) approach.

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Material and Method: In the present field study, HSE variables were assessed by a checklist (NHSES) through observation, interviews with neighborhood residents as well as document review.Of the 374 vicinities in Tehran, ten regions were selected through cluster sampling. The Control Chart approach was used in order to compare the field data and the possibility of decision-making about the neighborhoods.

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Results: Overall, results showed that status of health, safety and environment in both rich and poor neighborhoods in Tehran was in the warning level.

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Conclusion: The CBI is an appropriate model for empowerment of neighborhoodsin a way that promote HSE status.

Introduction: Safety signs provide information,related to hazards or dangers in the industry,in form of instructions. These signs are effective as long as they are designed in accordance with principles of ergonomics and design cognitive features. The purpose of this present research was to study the relationship between cognitive features of signs and ability to guess, and to develop the relevant regression model.

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Materials and methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on 100 employees in a petrochemical industry complex. A three part questionnaire was used to collect required data while first part of the questionnaire dealt with demographic information, second part included cognitive features of signs designand the third part proceeded on testing the ability to guess. Then, a regression model was developed to determine the relationship between cognitive features, and the ability to guess.

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Results: Mean and standard deviation obtained for the ability to guess the total study signs were 63.73 and 4.36, respectively. The feature of “familiarity” obtained the lowest possible score (49.15). The “semantic closeness” (β=0/390) and “meaningfulness” (β=0/369) had the highest correlation with the ability to guess safety signs.

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Conclusion: According to results of this study, use of principles of ergonomic design of signs and training are necessary to promote the ability to guess the safety signs to the minimum available standards. Therefore, it is possible to balance cognitive features especially “familiarity”, with the lowest score, and “meaningfulness” and “semantic closeness”, with the highest influential relationship with the ability to guess of signs. The developed regression model for this industry can be used to predict the ability to guess of safety signs in future studies

Introduction: According to previous researches, working at the airport is one of the most vociferous jobs in the world. Airport workers are at risk of noise induced hearing loss. The present study was done to evaluate the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) in the closest aprons to Ground Safety department at Mehrabad airport and to investigate the effect of airport noise on the employees of this department.

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Material and Methods: Evaluation of SPL in the given aprons was done using sound meter and sound analyzer. Measurement stations at specific intervals to the sound source were identified inside and outside of the participants 'workplace and SPL was measured at night and day. The mean estimated values were compared with those presented by Ministry of Health. The annual participants' audiometry information was extracted from medical records. Then a self-administered questionnaire was distributed among the study sample in order to measure quality of noise exposure. The questionnaire was developed based on three general criteria including the knowledge toward the noise pollution, job satisfaction, and the exposure to the noise source and the purpose of this questionnaire was to find the relationship (correlation) between these parameters among the study population.

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Result: The measured equivalent for 8 hours noise exposure was obtained 94 dB(A) and no relation was observed between octave band sound of aircraft and recorded audiometry. Analysis of the questionnaire showed that people with more knowledge about noise pollution used more hearing protective equipment. Subsequently, by using more hearing protection equipment the level of hearing loss was reduced significantly (P<0.05). There was a significant and negative correlation between noise exposure and job satisfaction, as well (P<0.05). Also there was a significant and negative correlation between using of ear muffs and catching Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (P<0.1). The percentage of noise-induced hearing loss was calculated 51.4% among study sample.

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Conclusion: The noise exposure of employees of Ground Safety working in Mehrabad airport was higher than the permissible limit which implies the necessity for use of earmuffs and implementation of noise reduction programs.

Introduction: High-rise building projects are increasing due to the population growth, urban development, and migration of people to the major cities. High-rise buildings have special importance in terms of HSE risks rather than other projects since these projects are located in the cities and in the direct contact with people. However, in most incidents and events, organizations do not have enough insight into the true cost. Therefore, identification and assessment of management of HSE risks is essential.

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Material and Methods: In this research, HSE risks in high-rise buildings that have harmful effect on human health and environment were identified, assessed and ranked. The Risks were identified and assessed through checklist and interview with experts. Considering the uncertainty and the ambiguous nature of the risks, the combination of fuzzy numbers and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method were employed for quantitative analysis. Finally, the estimated risks were ranked for control.

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Results: Using AHP Method, the weight of health, safety, and environment were obtained 0.346, 0.3, and 0.354,respectively, which shows the higher importance of environmental and health risks in construction projects comparing to safety risks.

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Conclusion: Findings in this research indicated that HSE risks are very critical and they should be controlled before start of the project. Moreover, many of HSE risk are due to lack of appropriate HSE culture in the organization and projects that can be reduced by culture-building practices.

Introduction: Work-related accidents may cause damage to people, environment and lead to waste of time and money. Health, Safety and Environment Management System has been developed in order to reduce accidents. This study aimed to investigate the effect of implementation of this system on reduction of the accidents and its consequences and also on the safety performance indices in Kermanshah Petrochemical Company.

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Material and Method: In this study, records of accidents were collected by OSHA incident report form 301 over 4 years. Following, the mean annual accidents and its consequences and safety performance indices were calculated and reported. Then, using statistical analysis, the impacts of two years implementation of this system on the accidents and its consequences and safety performance indices were evaluated.

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Result: The results showed that the implementation of HSE system was significantly correlated with Frequency Severity Indicator, Accident Severity Rate, lost days, minor accidents and total incidents (P-value <0.05). Moreover, the values of these variables have been reduced after implementation of this system. However, the system did not influence the Accident Frequency Rate and disabling accidents (P-value> 0.05).

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Conclusion: The implementation of Health, Safety and the Environment Management System caused a reduction in accidents and its consequences and most of the safety performance indices in the entire process cycle of Kermanshah Petrochemical Company. Overall, safety condition has been improved considerably.

Introduction: The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between safety climate and safety performance with respect to the mediating effect of safety knowledge and safety motivation.
 

Material and method: The study population was a sample of 354 subjects chosen by Cochran formula among all 4252 employee in Sarcheshmeh copper complex in Rafsanjan, 2015. The participants were selected according to stratified random sampling. Data collection was done by four questionnaires (safety climate, safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety performance).The Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability (CR) were used to evaluate the reliability of the study tools and the coefficient of all variables were acceptable with values of higher than 0.8. Moreover, validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by convergent validity and divergent validity, R-square, effect size (f2), and Q2 criterion. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE) was greater than 0.4 which is relatively acceptable. The obtained data were analyzed using SmartPLS software. 
 

Result: Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to investigate the normality status of variables distribution. Furthermore, Structural Equations Method (SEM) was adopted to test the research hypotheses.The results confirmed all the research hypothesis and showed safety climate direct effect on safety performance. Moreover, safety motivation and safety knowledge have mediating role in the relationship between safety climate and safety performance. Safety motivation can also mediate the relationship between safety knowledge and safety performance.
 

Conclosion: Overall, it is recommended to improve safety climate, considering its influencing components. Employees' safety knowledge and safety motivation should also be promoted. Additionally, it is recommended to determine other personal and organizational parameters and include them into the model. By determining the mediating variables, their role in the safety performance can be investigated.

Introduction: During recent years, carcinogenic effects of X-ray have been proven. Todays, lead is used in many equipment such as  coats, thyroid shield, and gloves for body protection against X-ray. However, these equipments have several disadvantegous including toxicity, heaviness, and inflexibility. Hence, newer methods like protective semisolid products (cream, ointment) for topical application are being replaced. Therefore, the feasibility of using an ointment containing bismuth oxide nanoparticles (Bi2O3) as a X-ray adsorbent was evaluated in this study.
 

Methods and Materials: First, synthesis of Bi2O3 and then formulating it in the form of ointment was investigated. In this study, X-ray device and dosimeter was employed to check the X-ray absorption in different thickness of bismuth oxide nanoparticles ointment.
 

Results: In dosimetry test, the protective effect of the ointment containing Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles was evaluated significantly (P<0.05) better than control group and equal sheet lead group. Dosimetry tests showed that the bismuth oxide nanoparticles ointment and cream absorb  56% of the radiation whereas this value is  41% for lead. K absorption edge for bismuth is higher than other metals and its nanoparticles have more absorbent surface to volume ratio (S/V).
 

Conclusion: It seems that due to higher atomic number and lower toxicity, Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles have better efficiency in X-ray absorbtion, comparing to the lead. Cream and ointment of bismuth oxide nanoparticles can be used as X-ray absorbant for different professions such as physicians, dentists, radiology experts, and operating room staff and consequently increase health and safety of these employees.

Introduction: Electrical industries are among high risk industries. The present study aimed to assess safety risk in electricity distribution processes using  ET&BA technique and also to compare with both VIKOR & TOPSIS methods in fuzzy environments.
 

Material and Methods: The present research is a descriptive study and ET&BA worksheet is the main data collection tool. Both Fuzzy TOPSIS and Fuzzy VIKOR methods were used for the worksheet analysis.
 

Result: Findings revealed that overhead low and medium voltage power distribution networks had the highest risk among the other network types of transmission and distribution of electricity. Also, it was found that TOPSIS and VIKOR methods are appropriate to rank the safety risks with somehow similar results.
 

Conclusion: The height and electricity are of the main causes of accidents in electricity transmission and distribution industry which caused the overhead power networks to be ranked as high risk. Application of decision-making models in fuzzy environment minimizes the judgment of assessors in the risk assessment process.

Introduction: Agriculture is amongst the hazardous activities with a high rate of occupational injuries. Safety training is proved to have positive effects on reduction of agricultural users’ occupational accidents. In this sense, agricultural experts and extension agents play an important role in safety training programs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate attitude of Agricultural Jihad Organization professionals toward safety.
 

Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was implemented by survey research design. The study population was 230 individual selected by Tackmans' Table, using proportionate stratification sampling method from Agricultural Jihad Organization professionals in Khuzestan and Ilam provinces. A questionnaire validated by a panel of experts and its reliability within a pilot with Coronbach Alpha's coefficient (α=0.75), was used for data collection. Data were finally analyzed by SPSS software version 22.
 

Results: The mean (SD) of safety attitude score was 4.04(0.77) out of 5, and overall attitude of 71.23 percent of the respondents toward agricultural safety were at "good" and "moderate" level. Of the components of experts' safety attitude "spending on safety is a worthwhile investment" and "the necessity of formulation of agricultural safety legislation by executers" had the first and second priority, respectively. There were significant differences in safety attitude considering gender and job tenure. However, no significant difference was observed regarding marital status, occupational group, and witnessing agricultural accidents. Furthermore, the association between safety attitude and "age" and "education" was positive and significant; but no significant correlation was found between number of educational courses and safety attitude.
 

Conclusion: Considering the importance of safety training, identifying the factors pertinent to agricultural experts' safety attitude would help safety experts to develop and implement strategies in order to reduce occupational accidents in this sector.

Introduction: Nowadays, gas and oil account for 60 percent of world energy resources. Transporting crude oil and its products are accomplished through a number of ways among which pipelines are of the utmost significance. Considering the extent of pipelines in installation and residential areas and also high potential for damage, the safety of these pipes and application of risk management principles have undeniable importance. Bow-tie risk assessment method is one of the ways to determine safety level. The tool is a qualitative and semi-quantitative method the data of which are implemented by specialists and experts via conducting surveys.
 

 Method and material: In the present study, Bow-tie technique was employed having been combined with fuzzy logic in which Likret Scale was applied to quantify the qualitative (verbal) data to reduce the uncertainty of risk evaluation of Amaak No.10 gas pipeline and Bongestan No.12 petroleum pipeline. In this way, factors affecting the pipeline safety were at first, recognized through the checklists. Then, the risk evaluation of pipplines was conducted using the mentioned method.
 

Results: The results of the study showed that third party damages, initial defects in materials, and constructing pipeline with failure possibility of 0.0484 stood at the highest in terms of importance (equivalent to 12.32%) in destroying oil and gas pipelines. In addition, the toxic impacts and environmental damages with occurrence possibility of 0.00327 were the most striking consequences of gas and oil leakage based on event tree analysis.
 

Conclusion: Considering the recognized factors leading to destruction of pipelines and their most notable outcomes, instructions on how to control and reduce the potential consequences were suggested, with emphasis on the removal of the most probable causes.

Introduction: Safety climate is the perception of personnel about the priority of safety in an organization. The objective of this study was to evaluate safety climate using Nordic questionnaire in a hospital.

Material and Method: In this cross-sectional study, 92 nurses working in different wards of a hospital in uromia city, Iran, filled out the NOSACQ-50 questionnaire. The responses of nurses were recorded with a 4-point Likert scale. The results were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics.

Results: Seventy-two percent of nurses were female and the remainders (28%) were men. The mean score of safety climate dimensions was different. “Management safety priority, commitment, and competence” and “Safety communication, learning, and trust in co-workers safety competence” dimensions obtained the lowest and the highest scores by nurses, respectively. The mean score of safety climate ranged 2.49 to 2.67 in different wards of the hospital. What is more, the mean safety climate was not statistically differed among nurses of various age and work experience categories (P-value> 0.05).

Conclusion: According to the results, it can be noted that the level of safety climate in the hospital was fairly good from the nurses’ viewpoint. However, attempts should be made to improve it, especially in the safety management related dimensions. Corrective control measures should be implemented in all wards of the hospital for all personnel with any age and work experience.

Introduction: Resilience engineering (RE), as a new approach in the system safety domain, is intended to preserve the performance of socio-technical systems in various conditions; and accentuates the positive activities instead of the failure modes. The aim of this study was to develop a new framework for safety assessment on the basis of RE, using the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method.  

Material and Method: Current study is an analytical cross-sectional survey performed in a petrochemical industry. Initially, six RE indicators were selected, including top management commitment, just culture, learning culture, awareness, flexibility and emergency preparedness and accordingly an assessment framework was established. Then, the selected RE indicators were evaluated and validated by experts in a specialized panel. Following, an indicator was proposed named “resilience early warning indicator”. Finally, the RE indicator score of the total process was determined using the fuzzy evaluating vector.   

Result: Findings revealed that top management commitment and learning indicators have the most and the least effects on the RE level of the process, respectively. Besides, the flexibility (C3) indicator was located in orange early warning zone (OEWZ) while other indicators were positioned in the no early warning zone (NEWZ). Furthermore, the overall resilience level of the process was evaluated as level III (NEWZ).

Conclusion: Management commitment and emergency preparedness are two main indicators of RE and can carry out the most important effect for remaining the RE in the NEWZ level.

Introduction: In recent years, a growing attention has been paid to assess the physical characteristics of rich and poor urban districts to understand social health differences. Urban districts environment play a major role in health of the residents. Previous few studies have considered some aspects of limited neighborhood environment. The current study was designed to investigate the reliability of the Neighborhood Health, Safety and Environment (NHSE) tool in one of Tehran city neighborhoods.

Material and Method: Dimensions and related items of the NHSE were extracted based on the previous studies and interviews with city experts. Five observers completed the NHSE in a selected neighborhood in order to test inter and intra-rater reliability of the tool. Data analysis was done using the Cronbach’s alpha, Interclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and kappa coefficient.

Result: The ICC and Cronbach’s alpha were estimated 0.86 for all dimensions of the NHSE. The calculated kappa values were in the range of 57%-66% for inter-rater reliability and 0.47-0.62 for intra-rater reliability.

Conclusion: The NHSE tool was shown to have a desirable inter and intra-rater reliability and a good level of internal consistency for assessing the health, safety, and environment (HSE) of the neighborhoods.