Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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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.

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Introduction: Positive safety attitude of employees is directly associated with workplace safety, and it can decrease occupational accidents through increasing the number of safety acts. Assessment of employees’ safety attitude in workplaces can be more helpful to identify underlying causes of unsafe acts. The main aim of this study was to assess safety attitude and its’ relationship with different personal and occupational variables in a number of manufacturing companies, located in Urmia City, Iran.  

Material and Method: In this study, the safety attitude of 194 employees was measured in 9 manufacturing companies using a questionnaire with acceptable validity and reliability. The questionnaire consisted of two parts: participants’ personal and job related information, as well as 46 safety attitude related questions. The questions of safety attitude was measured using a five-point Likert scale in form of ten main aspects. 
 
Result: The results indicated that majority of participants (78.9 %) had a moderate safety attitude level and the mean (±SD) score of total safety attitude was 3.19 (±0.25). “Commitment to safety and participation in safety activities” and “safety talk and risk information communication” obtained the highest and lowest scores of safety attitude factors, with mean (SD) of 3.97(±0.52) and 2.53(±0.58), respectively. In addition, the participants from private companies showed a better safety attitude than those of governmental companies (P-value<0.05). Managers and workers, who had previously received safety training, reported a different attitude toward various factors of safety attitude, in comparison with untrained groups.

Conclusion: Since the majority of participants had a moderate safety attitude, this research suggests the study companies to attempt in order to increase the quantity and quality of safety training courses, as well as safety communication of managers and supervisors with workers for improving their attitude toward safety and subsequently decreasing occupational accidents.

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Introduction: Global Harmonized System (GHS), is a system for labeling chemicals. The aim of present study was to investigate the effect of rapid training intervention on student’s awareness toward Global Harmonized System.  
Material and Methods: This research was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study conducted among 317 students of Public Health and Allied Medical Sciences faculties of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in 2016 year. Sampling was done in a random base among the study population.  A general demographic and a global system labeling questionnaires were used for data collection. Training intervention for familiarization with the chemical safety labels, types of chemicals hazardous was implemented using a rapid training method and PowerPoint tool. Data analysis was performed by T-Tests, ANOVA and T-Paired using the SPSS version 18.
Results: Allied medical sciences students with an average of 48.31% before training and occupational health students with an average of 94.44% correct answers after the training have the highest awareness on global harmonized system (GHS). The findings also showed that training has a significant effect on the awareness on the international labeling system.
Conclusion: The present study showed that initial awareness of the students is low concerning the global harmonized system. So, the prevention of serious accidents in the laboratory environment, the implementation of a short training course would play a significant role in raising students’ awareness about chemical hazards and will control unsafe behaviors during laboratory works.

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Introduction: Occupational health is one of the important issues that can affect productivity and economic development of an organization. This study aimed to determine the effect of didactic interventional Ergonomic-Safety program on workers’ productivity of an assembling industry.
Methods and Materials: This interventional study was conducted on 54 workers of assembling part of an electronic industry. Firstly, QEC method was used for Ergonomic assessment of work place and Hersey-Goldsmith questionnaire was applied for assessment of productivity. Then a comprehensive program was provided using findings of first stage assessment and identifying of existing failures. Second assessment of Ergonomic condition and productivity was done again by using QEC method and Hersey-Goldsmith questionnaire within three month of interventions. Data was analyzed by using of R software.
Results: Mean total productivity score and mean whole body score of QEC were 75.24 and 99.40 in before intervention phase respectively. In after intervention phase, Mean total productivity score and mean whole body score of QEC were 80.16 and 97.92 respectively. Data analysis by paired-samples t-test shows that difference of productivity score in before and after intervention phase was significant (P-value˂0.05). But difference of whole body score of QEC score in before and after intervention phase was not significant (P-value>0.05).
Conclusion: Accomplishment of Ergonomic-Safety intervention had a positive effect on productivity score whereas had not significant effect on general condition of body limbs.

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Introduction: Maintaining and improving organizational safety requires a strong safety culture. Following the occurrence of occupational incidents, proper registration, reporting, and investigation is a key requirement for safety culture to provide an appropriate learning culture. As a result, this study was carried out to assess the culture of occupational incident registration, reporting, and investigation in the province of west Azarbaijan’s industries.
Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, data on the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incident were collected using a 68-item questionnaire. A total of 420 employees from a number of construction and mine companies, as well as hospitals participated in this study.
Results: The results of study showed that the average total score for the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents was 3.08 (±0.38), with the factor of corrective action had the highest 3.17 (±0.72) and the reasons for lack of reporting had the lowest 2.90 (±0.54) scores. There was also a significant relationship between the average score of the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents with education, industries, and companies. Employees who attended training courses had a lower mean score for the culture of occupational incident’ registration, reporting, and investigation than those who did not take training courses. The mean score of the culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents of the employees who had experienced an occupational accident was lower than those who had not experience occupational accidents in the past.
Conclusion: The findings of this study revealed that corrective actions is necessary after the occurrence of occupational incidents. Attending training courses and having an occupational accident experience had no positive impact on promoting culture of registration, reporting, and investigating occupational incidents.

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Introduction: Relief work is inherently associated with various stress-inducing factors due to the nature of the profession. Among relief-related professions, firefighters, due to the responsibilities related to firefighting and safety services, are exposed to various physical and chemical hazards. Therefore, the primary aim of this research was to compare the effect and practice retention, central and operational and skill-based stability over the balance of the firefighters with and without firefighting and rescue clothing and Hazardous Materials.
Material and Methods: The statistical population consisted of 5500 firefighters from the city of Tehran. As for the intervention, in the first group, central stability exercises, and in the second group, operational and skill-based exercises were performed by the firefighters during their shift days for a period of 6 weeks. The balance of the firefighters in both groups was measured at three stages: at the beginning of the intervention, immediately after the 6-week training period, and one month after the end of the training. The “Y Balance” board was used to assess the firefighters’ balance. Data analysis was performed using repeated measures analysis of variance and the Bonferroni post hoc test at a 5% significance level, using version 26 of the SPSS software.
Results: According to the results of this study, the balance of firefighters in both the right and left legs was significantly greater in the operational and skill-based training group compared to the central stability training group, both immediately after training and one month later (p < 0.05). With performing operational and skill-based training, right leg balance in the rescue suit was significantly higher than in the fire protection and hazmat suits (p < 0.05), while there was no significant difference between the fire protection and hazmat suits (p > 0.05). Left leg balance in the rescue suit was significantly higher than in both the fire protection and hazmat suits, and balance in the fire protection suit was significantly higher than in the hazmat suit (p < 0.05). Additionally, firefighters’ balance significantly improved after balance training (p < 0.05), and there was no significant difference between the balance measured one month after training and immediately after training (p > 0.05).
Conclusion: In addition to the fact that core stability exercises particularly task specific functional training are effective in improving balance and preventing injuries, the retention of these effects over time should be taken into account.