مجله مهندسی بهداشت حرفه ای
سال ششم شماره 2 (تابستان 1398)

One of the main steps for increasing the level of safety and planning for reactions in active or developing units is the assessment of risks such as the release of chemicals in the environment. The current study aimed at modeling the effects of gas condensate leakage from reservoirs to help formulate an emergency response.

In this study, the PHAST software was used to study the release of gas condensate from a storage tank in a gas refining industry and its modeling for scenarios of jet fire,pool fire, flash fire and vapor cloud explosion.

In the 650 reservoir as the most dangers reservoir, the four scenarios can have consequence of fatal, and the incident of the vapor cloud explosion and then the poolfire have the most consequences.

Based on the region's mud and modeling, some changes in the emergency response plan are required including changing access routes and changing the distance of the two muster points.

Steel industries are one of the most dangerous industries.Today, risk assessment is important for maintaining the health of the workforce.Decision matrix risk-assessment technique is a systematic approach widely used in the Occupational Health and Safety risk assessment. In this regard, the present study aimed to assess the safety and occupational health risk in the steel industry.

In the study, we used DMRA to assess the different types of risks in each section of the factory.In this method, the measurement of risk value is made by evaluating two risk factors of the likelihood and the severity of the hazard. In the study,the parameters of likelihood and severity related to the hazards in the steel manufacturing factory are weighted by using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process,then the priority orders of hazards were determined by using Fuzzy TOPSIS method.

We identified 66 types of hazards in 6 sections of the storage, the furnace, the production hall, the maintenance hall, the packing hall, and the quality control department. According to the results of risk assessment,D4،F4،F7،PH3،PH7،MH7،P2 and QC7 were high-risk hazards that need more attention, while D1،F16,PH13،MH10،P6 and QC5 had the lowest risk.​

In this research, regarding the degree of risks, we suggested the needed controls for the risks that were in the first rank of each section.The results of this study can enable managers to make the best decisions to provide and implement preventive actions based on safety performance evaluation.

Participatory ergonomics refers to the active participation of all components of an organization in the development and implementation of ergonomic knowledge in order to improve workplace conditions and safety of workforce in the organization. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of participatory and educational ergonomics on nurses' safety performance.

A one-month interventional study was conducted on 90 nurses working in a Khuzestan Petroleum healthcare hospital using a convenience sampling method. The subjects were divided into three groups: participation, training, and control. The researcher-made safety performance questionnaire (scopes of safety participation and compliance with safety rules) was used to collect data. The data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance and paired t-test by SPSS 16.

There was no significant difference in safety performance level of nurses from three groups before intervention (p<0.05), but there was a significant difference in the post-intervention (p<0.001). The significant difference was seen between the participation and control group in the field of safety participation, and between the education and control group in terms of compliance with safety rules (p<0.001).

participatory ergonomics is more effective than training in improving safety performance of nurses. The implementation of participatory ergonomics in collaboration with senior management commitment could be an effective step for achieving ergonomics goals in healthcare organizations.

Ergonomic trainings does not cost much in comparison to other interventions, such as changing work procedures, using new technologies and also redesigning workstations. The aim of this study was to investigate effect of continuous ergonomic training on productivity and exposure to ergonomic risk factors.

 In this study, 51 employees of one of Tehran's food industry in year 2018 were selected by random sampling method. Demographic and productivity data respectively were collected by Demographic and Achieve questionnaires. The exposure to ergonomic risk factors evaluated by Quick Exposure Check (QEC) method. This information was re-collected after a four-month ergonomic audio-visual training course. Then, by using the paired t-test, the effectiveness of this training course was evaluated.

Data indicated that almost half of the workers were in the worst possible posture; The number of people in this group did not change before and after the training, also two thirds of the samples had a moderate productivity score that training couldn’t change number of this group too. However, despite the lack of significant changes in the categories of exposure to risk factors of ergonomics and productivity, the changes in scores within these two groups were significant. It means that this was not significant in the way that the levels of these two variables in the studied samples Change.

This study has shown that continuous ergonomic training could reduce the QEC score and also could be a reason for increasing productivity in the workplace.

The construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries. Therefore, in order to improve the conditions and preventative interventions, senior executives of construction projects need to understand the factors affecting safety performance. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between safety investments and safety performance indicators in the construction industry.
 

This descriptive-analytic study was carried out using "multiple case study" method in 5 major construction worksites of Tehran in 2018. Data were collected using various techniques such as structured interviews, safety documentations and questionnaire. Collected data was analyzed using SPSS software version 18.
 

The results of the study indicate a strong negative correlation between the various types of safety investments (total safety investments, basic safety investment and voluntary safety investment) and the accident frequency rate (AFR) (r = -0.936, P-value < 0.05) (retrospective index ), and also indicate a strong direct correlation of this variable with the safety performance (prospective indicator) (r = 0.939, p-value < 0.05). Also, there was a significant relationship between marital status and age with safety performance.
 

The findings of this study showed that an increase in the level of safety investments (total safety investments, basic safety investments, and voluntary safety investments) will improve safety performance.

Occupational burnout syndrome is a long-term response to stressful situations that may lead to decrease the function, efficacy, and productivity in systems or individuals. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of occupational burnout and its related factors among dentists working in Semnan province in 2014.

Eighty-six dentists working in Semnan Province were studied. Data were collected using a 22-item Maslach burnout questionnaire that evaluates emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical tests, including Kolmogorov-Smirnov, T-test, ANOVA, Fisher exact, and Pearson tests.

In this study, 40.7% suffered from severe emotional exhaustion, 22.1% suffered from severe depersonalization, 97.7% suffered from severe reduced personal accomplishment. Aging showed a reverse relation with the prevalence of depersonalization (p = 0.02) and a direct association with personal accomplishment(p = 0.002). A significant relationship was seen between sexuality and emotional exhaustion (p = 0.002) and Depersonalization (p = 0.003). Occupational longevity demonstrated a reverse association with depersonalization (P = 0.039) and a significant direct association with personal accomplishment (p = 0.003). Working hours per week showed a significant direct association with depersonalization (p = 0.085).

Occupational burnout syndrome was found to be high among Semnanian dentists.  About half of the dentists had emotional exhaustion and more than 95% had a reduced personal accomplishment. Therefore, it is necessary to consider ways to reduce workload, working hours, and daily stress in dentists.

Although the physical and mental health of workers and, as a result, the productivity of organizations are influenced by the stress in the working environment, this issue has rarely been addressed in the literature. This research was therefore conducted to quantify the effects of stress on work ability, the incidents rate, and the performance of Takhte Jamshid hospital in Karaj.

The main variables were work stress (an independent variable), work ability index and the work-related incidents (as mediator variables), and hospital performance (as the dependent variable). Based on Cochran equation, 240 employees out of the total population of 636 were selected and then surveyed using the standard questionnaires developed by Agiuns regarding work ability index, work stress, and the employee work performance.

Based on the results, mean values of work stress, working ability, and the hospital performance were 3.06, 22.2, and 3, respectively. According to the structural equation modeling, work stress significantly affected both working ability (R2 = -0.87) and work-related incidents (R2= 0.68). It was also found that the work ability affected the incidents rate (R2= -0.34). Finally, the work incident rate had a substantial effect on the hospital performance (R2= -0.62).

Based on this study, work stress clearly affected the work ability of employees and the resulting performance of the hospital. Then, it is expected that mitigation of work stress can lead to a lower rate of work incidents and higher quality of hospital performance.

Nowadays, using nanomaterials is provided in various fields of science and technology due to their unique size and characteristics. On the other hand, these unique properties have created many concerns about the potential effects of nanomaterials on human and the environment. Occupational exposure is the most important way of human exposure with nanomaterials. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the symptoms of the workers of the nanotechnology companies in Tehran.

At first, a non-specific symptom questionnaire was designed and validated by a group of specialists. Then, nanotechnology companies were identified and questionnaires were provided to the employees of these companies. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS.22 software.

The results showed that the designed questionnaire had a good validity and reliability for the study. The average age of employees was less than 34 years and the average working experience was less than 7 years, indicating Newness of nanotechnology in the country. The results showed that the frequency of skin symptoms (such as roughness, itching and redness), respiratory symptoms (such as coughing, sneezing and sore throat) and ocular symptoms (such as burning, itching and redness) are relatively high among the workers of the nanotechnology companies.

Because the results indicated that the frequency of some of the symptoms were high among the workers of the companies under investigation, it is necessary to use control measures to reduce the exposure and contact of the workers with nanomaterial.