F. Golbabaei , M. Rostami Aghdam Shendi, M. R. Monazzam, M. Hosseini, M. Yazdani Avval,
Volume 5, Issue 2 (7-2015)
Abstract
Introduction: Outdoor workers are exposed to heat from solar radiation and the atmospheric conditions, in addition to the heat from the working process, which is worse by global warming. The purpose of this study was to evaluate heat stress based on wet bulb globe temperature index and also to examine the relationship between WBGT and physiological indices among outdoor workers of Shabestar city.
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Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in August 2014. WBGT measurements were taken according to ISO7243 standard in different hours. The physiological response of 53outdoor workers (including heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, oral temperature, and skin temperature) were measured among9occupationalgroups, including municipal workers, concrete makers, porters, construction and road making workers, stonemasons, farmers, traffic officers, and street vendors.
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Result: The mean WBGT index for all outdoor workers, except for municipal workers, street vendors, traffic officers and stonemason, was greater than threshold limit. The highest average WBGT index was for construction workers and the lowest was for municipal workers (respectively 27 and 26 °C). Moreover, a significant direct association was reported between the WBGT index and physiological parameters (P <0.0001), with the highest correlation coefficient belonged to heart rate (r=0.492).
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Conclusion: According to WBGT index, porters, Concrete makers, construction and road makers, and farmers had the highest exposure at all times of the day while the lowest level was related to municipal workers. What is more, heat stress showed a significant correlation with the study strains. Therefore, it is essential to conduct further research and in order to represent preventive countermeasures for the workers in this field.
Milad Abbasi, Mehran Pourhossein, Hamzeh Mohammadi, Farideh Golbabaei,
Volume 10, Issue 3 (8-2020)
Abstract
Introduction: Many studies have been carried out on the effects of heat stress on cognitive functions, but the results are contradictory. Therefore, this study was conducted to review the effect of heat stress on cognitive functions.
Material and method: In this study, all English articles conducted on effect of heat stress on cognitive, perceptual, and psychomotor functions from 1970 to 2018 were reviewed. For this, articles with keywords such as heat strain, heat stress, cognitive function, memory, comprehension, psychomotor, reaction time, mental performance, mood, mental response, error, task performance, fatigue, alertness, hyperthermia, and heat exhaustion in the Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, Pub Med, Springer, Wiley Online Library and ProQuest databases were searched. Out of 157 retrieved articles, 39 articles were finally reviewed according to the inclusion criteria.
Results: Out of 157 retrieved articles related to the topic, according to the inclusion criteria, 39 articles were finally considered for review. Among this articles, 9 (%23) articles were published before 2000 and 30 (%77) after 2000. Two articles were in athletes, four articles (%10.2) in workers, four articles (%10.2) in students, four articles (%10.2) in military soldiers and twenty-five articles (%64.2) were conducted in ordinary people.Based on the results, heat stress was identified as a detrimental factor for decreased cognitive functions such as reading comprehension, memory, focus, mathematical processing, tracking test, reaction time, perception and decoding text and numeric messages, visual alertness, mental computing, text reading , hidden figures test and verbal fluency.
Conclusion: Based on the results of these studies, heat stress has been introduced as a detrimental factor for disrupting cognitive functions, but conclusion based on the results of studies is a systematic method is difficult because many confounding variables such as type of work, exposure time, skill and adaptation plays a big role.
Saeid Yazdanirad, Farideh Golbabaei, Amir Hossein Khoshakhlagh, Vali Sarsangi, Mehdi Yaseri, Seyed Mahdi Mousavi,
Volume 12, Issue 1 (3-2022)
Abstract
Introduction: Prevention of heat-related diseases requires the participation of the workers. For this reason, the aim of this study was the development and validation of the tools for evaluating awareness and practice related to heat stress among the workers of warm workplaces.
Material and Methods: The various items and factors related to the awareness and practice of the workers were identified by the literature review. Then, several questions for evaluating these items were designed. In the next step, the reliability and validity of the questionnaires were appraised using calculating the content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI), and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, respectively. After that, these questionnaires were completed by 2338 employees of six industries in various regions of Iran. Finally, collected data were analyzed using SPSS software.
Results: In total, 77 questions, including 53 questions on awareness and 24 questions on practice in six groups of water and beverages, food, snacks and additives, heat exchange, thermal strain risk factors, clothing and heat protection equipment, and heat-related disorders and body reactions, were designed. The values of content validity index (CVI) of remained questions in the questionnaires of awareness and practice were equal to 0.954 and 0.824, respectively. The values of Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of these questionnaires were calculated by 0.755 and 0.716, respectively. The values of the chi-square divided by degrees of freedom (CMIN/DF) and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) in the construction of the awareness questionnaire were computed as 4.58 and 0.079, respectively. These values in the construction of the practice questionnaire were calculated by 2.33 and 0.084, respectively.
Conclusion: The results showed that the designed questionnaires had appropriate reliability and validity and could be used to evaluate the awareness and practice in warm workplaces.
