Journal of Health and Safety at Work

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Introduction: Traffic transportation system despite of benefits is one center of accident.According to studies, human factors as unsafe acts and drivers mistakes are causes of accidenta happening. The main objective of this study was to Study of unsafe behaviors among city bus drivers in Hamadan.

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Method and Materials: This cross-sectional study was conducted in spring of 2011. Fifty four drivers were chosen using simple random sampling among Hamadan city bus drivers. The required data gathered by using safety behavior sampling technique. Data analysis was done with Statistical tests such as t-test and one-way ANOVA.

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Results: The study results indicated that %42.71 of driver’s behaviors were unsafe. Double Park (%24.71), speaking (%14.99) and unsafe grasping the steering wheel (%12.46) allocated to highest percentages of unsafe behaviors. Also it was shown the rates of unsafe acts were increased in younger and low income drivers, apparently.

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Conclusion: Because of high percent of unsafe acts and considering importance of its consequences in drivers, reducing unsafe acts trough investment and utilization of behavioral safety principles is required. In this regard, holding educational careers are suggested to increasing driver’s awareness.

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Background and Aim: According to the biorhythm theory when the phase shift from positive to negative and vice versa people experience a critical an unstable day that prone them to error and accident. The purpose of this study is to determine this relationship in one of the automobile manufacturing industry.

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Materials and Methods: At first 1280 person incident entered the study was reviewed and then the critical days of each biological cycle was determined using the software Easy Biorhythm Calculator for all persons.

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Results: This study showed that the frequency of accidents in critical days and negative section of physical cycle was more than expected. Also the frequency of accidents in critical days and negative section of emotional and intellectual cycles was less than expected.

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Conclusion: This study showed that the frequency of accidents in critical days and negative section of physical cycle was more than expected. Also the frequency of accidents in critical days and negative section of emotional and intellectual cycle was less than expected. Due to the physical nature of the work activities in the automobile manufacturing industry can be stated that the study showed that in physical work activities, frequency of accidents in critical days and negative section of physical cycle in which the person is not physically ready to do the job was more than expected.

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The safety of high risk jobs especially in oil refining activities is a major concern. In the present paper, the welding risks in Tehran oil refinery have been assessed using the Job Safety Analysis (JSA) and the effectiveness of the controlling methods have been investigated. A descriptive study was conducted on 33 risks of 10 welding tasks in Tehran oil refinery (north unit). After arranging the appropriate expertise team, tasks in the welding process were identified using two methods of viewing the process and interviewing with the welders. The risks of each task were then identified through viewing the process, interviewing the welders and completing safety checklists. Risk Priority Number (RPN) was used for risk assessment. RPN was estimated from Likelihood and Severity Numbers using Australia/New Zealand standard (AS/NZS 4360/2004). Risk assessment was conducted for existing and post-control conditions. The effectiveness of the controlling measures suggested by the expertise team was evaluated using appropriate statistical methods. The results revealed that in the existing condition, 27.3% of the studied risks have a RPN of 5 (with an extremely high hazard potential), 3% a RPN of 4 (with a high hazard potential) and 69.7% with a RPN of 3 (with a medium hazard potential). The results also revealed that with the application of control measures suggested by the expertise team, 21.2% of the studied risks will hold a RPN of 4 (with a high hazard potential), 6.1% will have a RPN of 3 (with a medium hazard potential), 48.5% with a RPN of 2 (with low hazard potential) and 18.2% will have a RPN of 1 (with a negligible hazard potential). Statistical tests revealed that the application of control measures, will reduce the average amount of likelihood, severity and risk priority numbers significantly (Pvalue<0.01).

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Introduction: The human factor played major role in the accident causation. Statistics show that human error and human mistake are the primary cause for more than 80 percent of the accidents in petrochemical industry.The aim of this study wasidentification and assessment of human error due to unsuitable design which causeaccident and damage to the equipment in thesour water and SRP unit of arefinery plant.

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Material and Method: This research was qualitative case study to identify and assessment of human errors of worker in the control room of sour water within a oil refinery plant. The group of tasks with potential to causing accidents wereidentifiedby direct observation of activities and documents and individual interview. Hierarchical Task Analysis method (HTA) was used tojob analyze and the results were presented in HTA charts. All possible human errors in work stages were identified and assessed using SHERPA method.Action Errors, Checking Errors, Retrieval Errors, Communication Errors, Selection Errors were analyzed and their related data were entered in SHERPA work sheet.

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Result: The findings showed that from all of the 118 identified errors 50% were Retrieval, 22/22% wereAction Error22/22% Communication and 5.55% Selection Error.

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Conclusion: To prevent and control occurring each of the identified errors and to limit the consequences of them, appropriate counter measures such as proper control measures in the form of changes in design, including install the appropriate colored tag, digital indicator and warning lights which must be used base on the kind of system consequently, of this study showed that SHEPA can be an efficientmethod to study humanness in operational site.

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Introduction: Industrial accident is one of the most minatory elements for worker’s health, productivity and organizational performance. Unsafe behavior is the main reason associated with occurrence of accidents. The main goal of this study was application of participatory techniques to achieve control measures of these behaviors.

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Material and Method: Using safety behavior sampling technique in this study, behaviors of staffs were evaluated and then the most risky behaviors were determined by paired comparison method. By application of participatory approach of dotmocracy in six steps, controlling ideas were derived by participation of operators, supervisors, engineers, HSE team and managers.

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Result: 48.8% of the behaviors were unsafe. Misuse or notusing of the personal protective equipments with 63.4% was the most frequent unsafe behavior. Awkward postures, aggregation or passing under suspended loads were also followed by the unsafe behaviors. By application of participatory approach of dotmocracy, several applicable ideas in personal protective equipment, education, reinforcementand punishment, aggregation or passing under suspended loads and other ideas were achieved.

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Conclusion: Dotmocracy participatory technique is an effective way to achieve various practical solutions in control of worker’s unsafe behaviors.

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Introduction: Following the presentation of Domino model by Heinrich in 1931 this idea was formed that human is the most important cause of accidents. According to Heinrich, unsafe behavior (88%), unsafe condition (10%) and unexpected factors (2%) are involved in accidents causation. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigates workers safety, culture and its influencing factors in detergent and cleaner company.

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Material and Method: In order to determine the level of safety culture in the understudy detergent producing company a questioner developed in 2010 was used. It was included dimensions of management commitment, training and information exchange, protective environment, inhibitory factors and priority to safety. After collecting the questionnaires, data were analyzed using SPSS version 17.

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Result: The mean age of the participants of 37.5 years old and the mean work experience 13.7 years. 52.3 % of workers had not experienced any accident during their working year. Moreover, mean (SD) score of safety culture was 180.51 (±35.216).

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Conclusion: The difference of safety culture score were statistically different among occupational groups and also between workers with and without accidents.

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Introduction: According to the previous studies, about 90% of accidents in the workplace are due to the unsafe behaviors. In this study, the impact of personality traits, as a predictive factor on the unsafe acts was surveyed in a construction project of a car manufacturing company.

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Material and Method: In this study, personality traits and unsafe behavior rates were determined using NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and safety behavior sampling (SBS) technique. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used. To analyze the acquired results, the total population of the project was 243 people.

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Result: The results showed that 31.7% of workers’ behaviors were unsafe behaviors. The correlation between unsafe behaviors and the neuroticism and extroversion were direct and significant (p<0.001).

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Conclusion: Assessment of the personality traits could be used as a predictive tool to identify employees with higher rates of unsafe behaviors and helps planning to reduce the accident rates.

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Introduction: Biorhythm is one of the newest subject in the field of cognition of mental ergonomics which can be very effective in reduction of work-related accidents or mistakes with no apparent reason.
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Material and Method: This research is a cross-sectional, retrospective, practical and analytical-descriptive study. Delijan cement production company during 2010-2011. Census method was applied and totally 79 accidents (total of the accidents) were investigated. The required information was collected from available documents in HSE unit of the company biorhythm charts were drawn based on a dates of accidents and participants birthdays, using Natural Biorhythm Software V3.02. Human errors were classified according to reason model and were analyzed by SPSS-W software.
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Result: The results of analysis showed that 40% of accidents have been accrued in usual days and the other 60% in critical days of biorhythm cycle. Regarding errors leading to accidents, it was observed that 95% of accidents were related to human error and 5% related to equipment errors. Moreover, 65.8% of the human errors were associated with the slipping which happens during performing a task, according to reason model.
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Conclusion: Findings of this research showed that bad and critical days of individuals’ biorhythms cycle influence the occurrence of accidents. Therefore, by training and increasing the knowledge of workers regarding biological cycle and its effects on mental, emotional and physical status, each person effects can make some changes to theire work plans during days that they do not feel well, physically or mentally, in order to prevent the likely accidents.

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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.

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Introduction: Each year, many people suffer from numerous injuries and damages in construction industry. Determination of factors that cause the most problems in a process is the most important step to improve the situation. Pareto chart can be used to explore factors causing most of the problems. The aim of this study was to survey construction accidents in Qom city using Pareto chart.

Material and methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, all accidents related to construction industry registered during 2009-2012 in the social security organization of Qom city, were analyzed using Pareto chart and mini-tabs software.

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Results: According to the results, 73.3% of accidents are due to objects and workforce being fallen. About 73.3% of the events occurred among 20-40 years old people. Hands and feet injuries comprised 53.4% of the accidents. Approximately, 61.8 percent of accident occurred in the first six months of the year. Moreover, the highest percentage of accidents was happened on Wednesday (19.4), Saturday (18.8), while Friday (8.4) and Thursday (10.5) had the lowest percentage of incidents.

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Conclusions: Employing Pareto charts as a method for analyzing and identification of accident causes can have an effective role in the management of work-related accidents, proper allocation of funds and time.

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Introduction: Each year tens of millions of labors are victims of occupational incidents leading to the disablement or death of many of them. The present study has been conducted with the aim of predicting the performance monitoring indicators of incident after implementation of the integrated management system in order to reduce number of incidents, safety monitoring, and giving priority to safety programs in the organization policies.

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Matherial and Methods: Using safety performance indicators, this descriptive-analytical study has been done in two stages in a combined cycle power plant on 254 incidents before the implementation (2004) and the years after the implementation of integrated management systems(a seven year period). The required data was gathered through checklist and interview with the injured workers. Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Chi Square, and Cubic regression tests were utilized for data analysis at significance level of 0.05.

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Results: Of the 1131 labors during a seven year period, 254 occupational incidents were recorded. The highest value of accident frequency rate was in 2004 (32.65) while the highest accident severity rate was in the year 2008 (209). Moreover, the lowest frequency rate and severity rate were related to the year 2011 with value of 9.75 and 29.26, respectively. Regression graphs, between the observed values and the estimated values, showed that the coefficients of all the indicators, except for β1of ASR,are significant(P< 0.05) as expected. This result implies the improvement in the safety performance and integrated management systems.

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Conclusion: Findings show that Cubic regression can be an appropriate to olforinvestigating the indicators trends and for their predictionin planning and monitoring the performance ofsafety unitso that the decision-making for determining the priority of organizations’ safety programs would be facilitated.

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Introduction: Road accidents are of the most important events, which cause death and injury of a large number of people and impose huge economic losses. According to previous studies, human factors are the main cause of traffic accidents. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of behavioral factors in driving-related non-fatal accidents.

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Material and Method: The present analytical study was carried out among 150 drivers of urban and suburban transportation system in Yazd province. The research tool was Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ) which is consisted of two sections: demographic information and driving behavior.

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Result: 83/9 % of the participants reported to use safety belt nearly always. The highest deliberate violations, slips, and mistakes were belonged to drivers with age group of 18-25. Moreover, deliberate violations had a significant relationship with rage (P < 0.05). Survey of behavioral factors in terms of vehicle ownership type showed that “deliberate violations” and “slips and mistakes” high among personal bus drivers and state-owned bus drivers, respectively, which shows the significant association between these behavioral factors and ownership type. What is more, rates of deliberate and unintentional violations and slips were higher among those with a history of two times incidents (P < 0.004).

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Conclusion: The results revealed that behavioral factors such as age, type of vehicle ownership, and accident history played a significant role in occurrence of traffic accidents.

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Introduction: Occupational accidents are of the main issues in industries. It is necessary to identify the main root causes of accidents for their control. Several models have been proposed for determining the accidents root causes. FTA is one of the most widely used models which could graphically establish the root causes of accidents. The non-linear function is one of the main challenges in FTA compliance and in order to obtain the exact number, the meta-heuristic algorithms can be used.

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Material and Method: The present research was done in power plant industries in construction phase. In this study, a pattern for the analysis of human error in work-related accidents was provided by combination of neural network algorithms and FTA analytical model. Finally, using this pattern, the potential rate of all causes was determined.

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Result: The results showed that training, age, and non-compliance with safety principals in the workplace were the most important factors influencing human error in the occupational accident.

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Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it can be concluded that human errors can be greatly reduced by training, right choice of workers with regard to the type of occupations, and provision of appropriate safety conditions in the work place.

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Introduction: By industrialization, work-related accidents emerged as one of the most threatening factors of human life therefore analyzing the causes of accidents and providing control measures to prevent reoccurrence of similar accidents are of crucial importance.
 

Method and Materials: This is an analytical-descriptive study in which the collected data were analyzed using Ishikawa and SCAT methods and results related to the relationships between variables were examined. In this sense, first, accidents leading to amputations associated with operating with press machines (stuck between two objects) were analyzed by Ishikawa method and the obtained causes were classified into three groups: direct causes, interface causes, and root causes. Then, the obtained causes and the control measures were placed in SCAT table. The effect of causes of accidents and their ranking were determined using Chi-Square Test and Friedman's test, respectively. Accordingly, appropriate control measures were provided based on the accidents causes.
 

Results: The most significant interface causes is hurry at work the most significant root causes is inappropriate and ineffective supervision and the most important control measures is establishing effective HSE management system in the organization.
 

Conclusion: According to results, the main interfce causes of accidents leading to amputation due to operating with press machines is hurry at work because of increased production volume particularly by contractor companies. Furthermore, non-dynamic HSE system accompanied by ineffective supervision of personnel’s unsafe acts by the first layers of management are recognized as the basic causes of such accidents.

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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: One of the important consequences of globalization and development, especially in developing countries, are occupational accidents. As, today the economic burden due to these accidents is remarkable on the country’s economy. The aim of this study was financial estimate of the productivity loss due to work-related deaths in Iran in 2013.

Material and Method: In this study, occupational accident data were used registered in the environmental and occupational health center, in Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education. A formula used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention America (CDC) was used to estimate the productivity loss. Finally, after replacing the necessary parameters amount of productivity loss was calculated.

Result: The total lost years of life were calculated 1293.15 years due to the deaths caused by occupational accidents. The total amount of monetary loss due to the productivity loss in the country, was estimated 730513.06 Rials. The greatest loss was in the 59-50 years old age group.

Conclusion: The negative rate of productivity, the large quantity of the discount rate, low life expectancy in the country as well as the low wages of the workers, are the likely reasons for minimal negative impact of the workforce deaths on the country’s productivity.

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Introduction: Work-Family Conflict can influence the physical and mental health of workers as a social parameter. The aim of this study is supposed to provide theoretical model of relationship between work-family conflict and occupational accidents, taking into account parameters such as job stress and general health of employees in a steel manufacturing industry.

Material and Method: Research population included workers of steel department of a steel manufacturing industry. This research was a cross-sectional study, and 270 individuals were selected in two groups, with an accident experience during lasts 5 years (case) and without (control). They responded to questionnaires including 4 parts, demographic, 18 questions of work-family conflict, 35 questions of job stress and, 28 questions of general health. Data were analyzed and introduced using AMOS software.

Result: Result showed that the model present an excellent goodness of fit and all of factors were significant between parameters (p<0.001). In addition, individual health and job stress with high coefficient could affect work-family conflict and work-family conflict was effective in the event of occupational accidents.

Conclusion: Reducing work-family conflict as a social parameter affecting stress can be effective in the reduction of occupational accidents. The organizational management system with optimization of this important factor can upgrade its level of occupational safety.

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Introduction: Correspondence analysis method and preparation of accidents and occupational hazards pattern is able to predict and anticipate accidents and is automatically prioritize the risks and injuries. The aim of this study was to present accidents and occupational hazards pattern based on risk-injury groups, which use it to manage of occupational accidents.

Material and Method: The report of occupational accidents, registered in the social security organization was collected in a period of ten years from 2005 to 2015 (222,300 accidents). Types of risk and injuries to any of the accidents specified based on International Labor Organization criteria and risk of injury were classified in a matrix (18 × 18). Risk-injury groups were separately identified using correspondence analysis and collapse process, as patterns of accidents and occupational hazards. In the mentioned patterns, the relationship between risks and damage can be identified, as it facilitates decision-making in risk assessment in companies covered by the social security organization.

Result: According to the findings, three groups of occupational accidents were obtained and variables of these three groups extracted from the obtained patterns. The first group included six risks and seven injuries that the risks variables were: contact with hot materials, accidents caused by caustic  and corrosive substances, contact with chemicals, accidents caused by toxic substances, contact with electrical equipment, explosion and fire, and injuries were: burns, other injuries, multiple injuries, gas poisoning, suffocation, poisoning, environmental hazards. The second group included seven risks and six injuries that the risks variables were: accidents caused by displacement, projections of fragments or particles, accidents caused by machine tools, slipping, falling people, falling objects, other accidents and injuries were: twists and sprains, dipping the objects in the body, objects in the eyes, cuts and amputations, superficial wounds, deep wounds. Finally, the third group included five risks and five injuries that risks variables were: Falling under the rubble, accident with vehicle, accidents caused by displacement, colliding of persons against objects, projections of fragments or particles, accidents caused by manual tools, trapped between objects, accidents caused by machine tools and injuries were: fractures, dislocation, back pain, hitting, contusions and crushing. It should be noted that the study of these patterns can be used to identify and prioritize of occupational accidents.

Conclusion: The proposed groups make new opportunities for development of the applications to analyze, interpret and automate management of occupational accidents in order to minimize uncertainty and increase its objectivity. Its advantage over other similar analyses can be considering both the risks and injury and to obtain groups of two variables. Due to the frequency and distribution of mass of risk and injury variables in the groups, the risk and injury variables of group 3 are the most important, and the risk and injury variables of group 2 are less important and the risk and injury variables of group 1 have the least importance.

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Introduction: Choosing maintenance strategy is one of the most complex and essential processes that can affect the safety and cost of equipment. The main aim of this study was to determine a risk-based maintenance policy for improvement of the safety and maintenance indices.

Material and Method: According to literature reviews and constraints associated with the studied industry, a number of safety and maintenance indices were selected and their values were measured. Next, in order to promote the selected indices, the best policy was implemented on nine critical machines of the company based on criteria such as cost, risk and availability in the framework of the fuzzy network analysis process. Finally, after six months period, the indices were re-measured. The Wilcoxon test was used to assess the changes in the indices.

Result: In the implementation of the model, condition based maintenance was more effective than other strategies. Following the intervention, the improvement of safety and maintenance indices was statistically significant. The statistical analyses demonstrated that indices like reliability, availability, mean time between failures, and the number of dangerous failures all were improved significantly (P<0.05).

Conclusion: The results showed that the simultaneous use of three criteria, i.e. cost, risk and availability in maintenance planning could reduce equipment-related accidents. Finally, the recommended model can improve the efficiency and competitiveness of organizations by increasing availability and reducing equipment costs

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Introduction: Disasters, incidents and crises are complex and controversial issues for the industries and organizations. Organizational resilience is an effective goal that continuously helps the organization’s performance throughout business, disasters and critical situations. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of organizational resilience questionnaire in dealing with major accidents.
Material and Method: The present study was a descriptive-analytic study. At first, the concept of organizational resilience and its dimensions were determined for the review. Then, for evaluating the content validity, the designed questionnaire was distributed among members of the expert’s panel and the Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity Ratio (CVR) were calculated based on the comments. The reliability of the questionnaire was determined after completing it by 272 employees of the studied industries.
Result: The CVR was higher than the standard value (0.50) considering all items. Also, all dimensions of the questionnaire, except for the responsibility dimension the CVI’s were above 90%. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for all questionnaire dimensions except for the responsibility dimension was higher than the acceptable value (0.70). This coefficient for the whole questionnaire was 0.967 indicating that this index was in excellent level.
Conclusion: The findings showed that the organizational resilience questionnaire in dealing with major accidents had an acceptable validity and reliability and in order to examine the organizational resilience in organizations, it could be used as a comprehensive, strong and reliable tool.