مجله ارگونومی
سال نهم شماره 4 (زمستان 1400)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Fear of COVID‑19 on psychological well-being in nurses with the moderating role of Resilience, in Khorramabad Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital.

The present study is descriptive research in the field of field studies in terms of applied purpose and in terms of data collection, the method of which was the survey. The statistical population of the study was 230 nurses working in Khorramabad Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital. Based on Krejcie and Morgan's table, a sample size of 140 people was selected by stratified random sampling method. To measure the variables of the research, a questionnaire was used which included three sections of Fear of COVID‑19, psychological well-being and Resilience. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha method and its validity was confirmed using convergent validity. For data analysis, structural equation modeling and Spss and PLS software have been used.

The results show that at the 95% confidence level, Fear of COVID‑19 has a negative and significant effect on nurses' psychological well-being (P<0/05; =β-0/509) and Resilience has a moderating role in relation to Fear of COVID‑19 and psychological well-being (P<0/05; =β-0/225).

According to the findings, it can be said that fear of Covid 19 has a significant role in reducing the psychological well-being of nurses, and among them, nurses with higher resilience have less psychological well-being than nurses with lower resilience.

High workloads are a major challenge to health care workers, especially first-line supporters, who are assistant nurses, and this has many negative consequences. this study aimed to identify the factors affecting the workload of nursing assistants in one of Tehran hospitals.

The research is descriptive-qualitative with the method of qualitative content analysis. With the participation of 13 assistant nurses who were selected by purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and after each interview, the data were loaded and analyzed in MAX QDA software and this process continued until data saturation.

In the findings of continuous data analysis, a total of 473 codes were found in the factors affecting workload in the process of nursing assistants' work system. Finally, they were classified into five categories of Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety model (person, task, organization, tools, equipment, and environment).

most factors affecting workload are obtained in the organizational component and the least in the environmental component of the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety model, which indicates the high role of interpersonal relationships in the workplace and hospital rules on the workload of nursing assistants.

Visual comfort is an important and influential factor on safety, mental health, sleep quality, and musculoskeletal disorders of employees in the workplace. This study aimed to design and develop a questionnaire to assess the visual comfort of employees in the workplace.

The study was performed on 101 participants (88 men and 13 women) in the food industry. First, the available lighting questionnaires in the field of lighting were reviewed, and a question bank was collected. Twenty questions were considered in two sections of natural and artificial lighting (10 questions in each section) based on the opinion of 10 experts in this field. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed using the content validity index (CVI) based on the comments of experts. To validate the questionnaire in the workplace, The lighting of employees' workstations was evaluated according to the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) standards and compared with the results of the questionnaire.

The Cronbach's alpha of natural and artificial lighting visual comfort questionnaire was 0.858 and 0.922, respectively. The total CVI of the questionnaire was 1. There was a significant positive relationship between the score of the visual comfort questionnaire and the workstations' illumination (P=0.001). More than 97% of employees who had workstations with the desired lighting reported excellent levels of visual comfort.

The visual comfort questionnaire had good and acceptable reliability and validity. This tool is recommended to assess the visual comfort of employees in work environments due to the small number of questions and simplicity of sentences.

Mental and physical fatigue of airport staff reduces their job standards and productive concentration. The objective of this study was to examine sleep quality and its effect on cognitive failure and job performance among airport staff.

In this descriptive-analytical study, 200 staff of an airport were chosen by simple random sampling method. The data collecting tools were four questionnaires including demographic characteristics, sleep quality, cognitive failures, and job performance. SPSS software (version 22.0) was used to analyze the data by descriptive statistics, and Pearson and regression tests.

Based on the findings, the mean total scores of sleep quality, cognitive failures, and job performance were 6.78±3.23, 65.22±20.36 and 39.59±5.59, respectively. The results showed that the mean score of sleep quality in the two areas of sleep latency (1.5±0.82) and sleep duration (1.43±1.05) was higher than other subscales. According to the findings, there was a significant inverse relationship between sleep quality score and cognitive failures scores with job performance score (r= -0.195، P<0.05), While the relationship between sleep quality score with cognitive failure score was positive and significant (r= 0.389، P<0.05).

The findings demonstrated a significant relationship between sleep quality and cognitive failure so that with decreasing this factor, cognitive failure of airport staff also increased and the probability of the human error increased. Therefore, the rise of sleep quality and comfort with providing ergonomic solutions the cognitive failure in staff and consequently job performance would be greatly prevented.

Musculoskeletal disorders and low quality of life are the most common problems among paddy farmers in the world. Paddy farmers are exposed to inappropriate postures, long working hours and stressful environmental conditions. The aim of this study was to compare different farming methods of rice cultivation (traditional and semi-modern) on the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and the life quality of paddy farmers.

This descriptive-analytical study was conducted in rice fields with 150 paddy farmers as a sample group (100 traditional paddy farmers and 50 semi-modern paddy farmers). Musculoskeletal disorders and quality of life were assessed using the Nordic questionnaire and the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile, respectively. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS V25.

The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the neck, lower back and shoulders is higher in traditional paddy farmers compared to farmers who work in semi-modern rice cultivation systems. Present results demonstrated that there was no significant difference between various rice cultivation methods and musculoskeletal disorders on life quality. Furthermore, different farming methods of paddy cultivation have no significant effect on paddy farmers' life quality.

Prevalence of lower back musculoskeletal disorders among paddy farmers is a result of long-term exposure to awkward posture. In addition, the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and different methods of paddy cultivation has not affected the life quality of paddy farmers.

Workplace architecture is one of the most important factors influencing employees' health and wellbeing. Therefore, it is necessary to study the role of workplace design on the emergence of various types of health problems among employees. The present research aims to study the prevailing conditions at the case studied workplaces and to identify the role of factors influenced by interior layout (location-ergonomics, lighting, indoor air quality (IAQ), temperature, noise, design style, and cleaning) on the emergence of Sick Building Syndrome among employees.

In the present study, three administration buildings [roads and urban development office, construction engineering organization, and airport] in Urmia, Tabriz are investigated as case studies and a total of 226 employees working in these buildings are selected as samples. Then, they are asked to fill out a questionnaire to collect the required data. The reliability of the questionnaire is confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The SPSS V.25 software is used to statistically analyze the data.

The findings indicate that despite the advantages of open plan layout for the organization of work environments, it provides many negative consequences such as increased noise and distraction, lack of ergonomics, congestion, reduced privacy, and the impossibility of personal control of environmental conditions. In general, it is not considered an efficient layout design for the workplace.

The results indicate that to effectively deal with the emergence of sick building syndrome and provide a healthy work environment, it is required to establish a balance between various parts in the workplace layout design including private office space, shared workplace, and/or open-plan according to the nature and type of work while considering the factors and parameters influenced by the layout design and environmental characteristics.

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus, staff's job satisfaction and mental health may be endangered, especially in health care centers. The study aimed to investigate the effect of the Covid-19 virus on job satisfaction and mental health of staff health care centers of Yazd county in 2020.

The study is a descriptive survey study and was conducted by selecting 265 stratified random samples from the staff of health care centers in Yazd county. Research tools include the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, General Health Questionnaire, and the Corona Disease Anxiety Scale. Data analysis was performed by ANOVA, Chi-square independence, and Pearson correlation tests in SPSS-26 software.

The results showed that staff's job satisfaction and mental health are moderate and dangerous, respectively, and corona anxiety has a significant correlation by staff's job satisfaction (r=-0.611, P=0.009) and mental health (r=-0.826, P=0.000). Age, gender, and marriage have a significant effect on job satisfaction, mental health, and corona anxiety (P-value<0.05).

It is suggested that healthcare providers increase their financial and moral support to healthcare staff with the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Also, rotating staff and hiring new staff is one of the things that can be taken by the relevant managers to improve the staff's job satisfaction and mental health.

Among agricultural activities, working and driving with farm tractors in different weather conditions lead to fatigue and burnout. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sleep quality of farm tractors drivers in different weather conditions.

From tractors drivers in Behbahan, Eqlid, and Kavar, 90 participants (Kavar: 27; Eqlid: 33; Behbahan: 30) were selected. The required data was gathered via demographic characteristics questionnaire and standard questionnaire Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). We used SPSS version 18, Kruskal-Wallis and Post-hoc pairwise comparison tests to analyze the data (α= 0.05).

The results showed that there are no significant differences in sleep quality and sleep quality parameters between different region tractors drivers (p > 0.05); but there are significant differences in sleep mental quality (p = 0.001), delays in falling asleep (p = 0.02), go to sleep duration (p= 0.04) and between Kavar and Behbehan, and also there are significant differences in go to sleep duration (p= 0.04) between Kavar and Eqlid.

Working in critical cold weather (like nights in Eqlid) or critical hot weather (like noon in Behbahan) should be strongly forbidden with a suitable working schedule, especially while working with tractors without a driver’s cabin. Drivers’ cabins reserve drivers against temperature, wind and dust, and, therefore increase their comfort and sleep quality.