Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Nowadays, computers are integral component of all workplaces. Moreover, employees healthstatus is directly associated with their occupational stress level. The aim of the present study was to investigative the effect of ergonomic training and intervention on reduction of occupational stress among computer users in welfare organization in Rasht city.

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Material and Method: In this semi experimental study, 283 female computer users, who were 30-40 years old with work experience of 5-15 years, were chosen as sample. The participants had at least one year experience of using computer and they had worked 3-4 hours with computer daily. The Osipow occupational stress questionnaire (1987) with Cronbach alpha 87% was applied for estimation of occupational stress. Then, 46 participants with moderate to high level of stress were selected and randomly divided into case ad control groups. Participants in a case group received practical and theoretical ergonomic training and also interventions (including armrest, foot rest, cushion, posture correction, reduction o work time duration, adjustment of the seat height according to individuals height, adjustment of eye-monitor distance). Finally, the obtained data were compared to those of control group, using covariance.

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Result: According to covariance analysis, ergonomic training and interventions lead to reduction of occupational stress of computer users.

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Conclusion: Training computer users and informing them of the ergonomic principals and also providing interventions such as correction of posture, reducing duration of work time, using armrest and footrest would have significant implication in reducing occupational stress among computer users.

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Introduction: Job stress is one of the occupational hazards in the modern era. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health introduced the nursing job as a top 40 stressful jobs. In this job, multiple training techniques are considered to reduce stress and stress factors. This study was conducted to response the question “Is the use of health education programs can be effective in reducing job stress?”

Material and Method: Electronic search was done using key words in Persian and English database (Medical Sciences, Iran Medex), Scientific Information Database (SID), Bio Med Central, Pub Med, Science Direct) and were found 3,412 paper totally. Articles examined based on defined criteria and 9 qualified articles were discussed systematically.

Result: Among the reviewed studies, educational interventions in 7 studies were without, and 2 studies were with the use of health education models. The results of studies indicated significant effect of educational interventions on reducing job stress and using health education models in interventions had a greater effect on reducing job stress.

Conclusion: The results highlights the importance of educational interventions based on health education models to reduce occupational stress among nurses.

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Introduction: Stress is one of the major problems of living in industrial societies. Job and career issues are the most important causes of stress. Job stress is one of the important factors in causing psychological injury and illness in staff and decreasing productivity in organizations. Since human resources are among the most important assets of any organization, identification of the factors causing job stress is very crucial. Therefore current study aimed to investigate the causes of occupational stress in the staff of different units of the legal medicine centers in the Northwest Provinces.
 
Materials and Methods: A Descriptive-analytical study was conducted was designed and conducted on 166 employees of the various units of the legal medicines centers of Tabriz, Urmia, Ardebil and Zanjan cities by census statistical method during 2016-2017. Data were collected using questionnaires consist of demographic information and Cooper job stress questionnaire. The  collected  data  were  analyzed  by  means  of  SPSS  software  using  t-test  for  independent  groups,  ANOVA,  chi square, Pearson and  Spearman  correlation  coefficients, at the significant level of P<0.05.
 
Results: It was found that about 50% of the staff had moderate job stress and more than 12% had severe job stress. The comparison of mean job stress between healthy and ill individuals showed that the patients had a higher mean of job stress than healthy individuals, and this difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The study of interference between work and life issue (family) also showed that the people whose work always interferes with their life issues had higher mean job stress than the other two groups and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). The result of this study also showed that there is a significant direct relationship between job stress and smoking (P<0.045), work interference and life issue (P<0.001), and a significant inverse relationship (P<0.044) with literacy.  Lower incomes, shifting the place of work, the heavy work, the ignorance of the managers to work problems, dealing directly with the people, the pressures due to the completion or working against deadlines, and the lack of hope for job promotion, respectively, are the factors causing stress in the organization.
 
Conclusion: Compared with employees of other organizations, the legal medicines staff seemed to have a much higher prevalence of stress. The organizational authorities could help staff to improve the quality of life and reduce occupational stress by creating the correct communication, desirable support and generating the appropriate environment for job activities.

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Introduction: Occupational stress is known today as one of the biggest challenges to higher education policy-makers. Students with high levels of stress find themselves lacking in self-confidence, vulnerable in controlling academic processes, and unable to compensate for clinical weaknesses. The main purpose of this study was to assess the levels of occupational stress among clinical dental students of Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Alborz, Iran.
Material and Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytic research with a cross-sectional design. The statistical population included all dental clinical students enrolled in the 7th, 9th, and 11th semesters in 2018 (n=84). According to the Krejcie and Morgan’s table, the sample size was 70. The data were also collected through the Osipow Occupational Stress Questionnaire, and then analyzed using the SPSS Statistics software (ver. 22). Besides, t-test was employed to investigate the relationship between variables and stress.
Results: The results revealed that the mean score of the students was 150.8. The mean total stress in the age group above 26 years was also 158 and that was 147 for those under the age of 26 (P-value=0.027). Besides, the mean score of overall occupational stress was equal in women and men. Comparisons also demonstrated that students in the 9th and 11th semesters (mean=161) were undergoing more stress than the ones enrolled in the 7th semester (mean=147) (P-value=0.014).
Conclusion: It was concluded that these clinical dental students were suffering from moderate-to-severe occupational stress. Likewise, older students had more stress than younger counterparts did. As well, male and female students’ levels of occupational stress were the same. Resolving this issue accordingly required special attention by higher education policy-makers to provide support and counseling in this respect.

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Introduction: Emergency technicians face workplace violence and increasing occupational stress. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a virtual self-management training in communication skills on occupational stress and the degree of aggression among emergency technicians.
Material and Methods: This study involved 60 emergency technicians randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group. They completed surveys on workplace violence and occupational stress. The intervention group received six weeks of a virtual self-management training in communication skills. Data was collected after two months and analyzed using SPSS software.
Results: The findings showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the control group (110.08±11.92) and the two intervention groups (114.39±11.25) in terms of the average occupational stress before the intervention; The average job stress score between the intervention (94.0±12,70) and control (98.81± 20,81) groups significantly differed following the intervention (p=0.034); After the intervention, the intervention group had lower verbal and physical abuse frequencies compared to the control group.
Conclusion: The virtual self-management communication training demonstrated the potential to reduce occupational stress but did not significantly decrease the violence towards the emergency technicians. A comprehensive training program addressing violence factors and communication techniques, implemented over a longer period, is recommended.