Archives of Hygiene Sciences
Volume:11 Issue: 4, Autumn 2022

Organizational culture and knowledge management affect all aspects of an organization. Thus, in this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of the components of Collaboration culture on knowledge creation in hospitals affiliated with Qom University of Medical Sciences in 2017.

This cross-sectional-analytical research was conducted on 570 employees of the hospitals affiliated with Qom University of Medical Sciences. The research tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed through content validity and convergent validity, and its reliability was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha method and composite reliability. The data were analyzed using SPSS 20 and Lisrel 8.8 software employing exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.

The means and standard deviations of Collaboration culture and knowledge creation were 3.071 ± 1.301 and 3.28 ± 1.11, respectively; their Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were 0.972 and 0.944; their composite reliability indices were obtained as 0.782 and 0.847, and the convergent validities of these domains were as 0.810 and 0.852, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis classified the constructs into the two sections of learning culture and knowledge creation, which were confirmed by fit indices.

The results showed that the Collaboration culture component has a positive and meaningful relationship with the knowledge creation component. Therefore, hospital managers should notice the benefits of providing the necessary infrastructure for the implementation of knowledge management and holding workshops for employees to educate them on the fundamentals
of cooperation culture and knowledge creation.

The quality of water consumed by individuals in a society will significantly affect the health of individuals of that society. Various substances that enter individuals’ bodies through drinking water play a critical role in maintaining their health so that the lack or excess of some of these substances can cause many complications. Thus, this study aims to determine water quality parameters of the water of the distribution network, the outlet water of the household water purification device, and the widely consumed bottled waters distributed in the city of Ardabil, and compare them with drinking water standards in 2019.

This study is a descriptive cross-sectional type, in which 30 bottled waters from 10 most widely consumed brands of bottled water distributed in the city of Ardabil and also 30 samples of the water of the distribution network and the outlet water of the household water purification device were randomly selected. All samples were tested based on the method standard reference. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used to compare the brands of bottles, the one-sample t test was used to compare the mean of each parameter with the standard value, and the paired student t-test was used to compare the mean inlet and outlet of the water purification device.

The results showed no microbial pollution in the investigated samples. The highest removal efficiency of the parameters by the household water purification device was 93.18% for sodium, and the lowest was 7.0% for nitrite.

In terms of chemical and microbial quality, the widely consumed bottled waters distributed in Ardabil had no health problems. In general, since the concentration of most urban physicochemical parameters is below the drinking water standard limit of 1053 in household water purification devices, the use of these devices is not necessary for the city of Ardabil.

The present study was carried out to assess the effect of yoga on organizational happiness in female employees of the Tehran Islamic Azad University-Tehran Medical Sciences.

This randomized study was conducted in Tehran on 40 female employees in 2019. The volunteers were randomly assigned to two control and exercise groups. The exercise group (20 people) performed two sessions of yoga exercises every week for 12 weeks. The control group (20 people) only performed daily activities. After 12 weeks of training, the data was collected in both groups using the Hills and Argyle Standard Happiness Questionnaire (2002), which included 25 questions and 5 components. A group of expert faculty members confirmed the face and content validity of the instrument. Also, reliability was reported as 0.73 through Cronbach›s alpha test. Data were analyzed using independent t-tests and paired-sample t tests.

Findings demonstrated that yoga had significant effects on the organizational happiness of female employees of the Tehran Azad University of Medical Sciences (P < 0.001).

Considering the findings, it can be concluded that yoga can promote the physical health and happiness of female personnel.

Nickel is one of the toxic heavy metals naturally released into the environment through industrial activities. Coagulation and flocculation are one of the available heavy metal removal methods, but experience has shown that high pH and the addition of coagulant aid are usually required to remove nickel by coagulation and flocculation process. This study aimed to examine the efficiency of polyaluminum silicate chloride (PASiC) coagulant in nickel removal from aqueous solutions.

This study was conducted experimentally on a laboratory scale using the standard jar testing method. We investigated the effect of pH parameters (4-11), amount of coagulant (7.5-75 mg/L based on aluminum), initial metal concentration (10-400 mg/L), and settling time (15-90 minutes). Nickel concentration was measured by flame atomic absorption spectroscopy. In this study, t test, between-groups ANOVA, and regression were used for analysis.

Results showed that the removal efficiency decreased at higher concentrations of nickel metal. Furthermore, increasing the settling time beyond 30 minutes did not significantly change the removal efficiency. PASiC had a removal efficiency of over 99% at an optimum pH of 8, an optimum PASiC concentration of 15 mg/L, an optimum time of 30 minutes, and a nickel concentration of 10-100 mg/L.

According to the results, the use of PASiC as a coagulant is a suitable option for removing nickel from polluted wastewater.

Caryophyllaceae is a large family of about 2200 herbaceous or subshrub species. Vaccaria oxyodontha Boiss is of the family Caryophyllaceae. This plant grows as a weed in agricultural land of sugarcane, wheat, barley, forage, and summer crops such as sugar beet, potato, cotton, and onion. All parts of the V. oxyodontha Boiss plant, especially its root, contain a type of saponin, which shows its medicinal value. According to traditional Iranian medicine, this plant is a blood purifier and has anti-infective, utilized for cough, anti-rheumatism, and anti-inflammatory properties. This study first aimed to investigate the chemical composition of V. oxyodontha Boiss essential oil (EO) and the antioxidant and antibacterial properties of the hydroalcoholic extract of this plant on gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.

In this study, EOs were extracted from the aerial parts of V. oxyodontha Boiss using the combination of hydrodistillation and microwave-assisted hydrodistillation methods. Then, the antioxidant properties and antibacterial activity of the extract were evaluated, and the chemical compositions of the EOs of V. oxyodontha Boiss were determined using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). The extract’s antioxidant activity was studied by the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl-hydrate (DPPH) method. In addition, the plant antimicrobial effects were investigated by the agar disk diffusion method, and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined as well. Finally, the antibacterial activity of the mentioned plant was compared with the antibiotic discs of gentamicin (10 mg) and vancomycin (30 mg).

The major compounds in the EOs were 2-Pentadecanone,6,10,14-trimethyl (10.52%) and 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid (19.27%). Half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of V. oxyodontha Boiss was 0.49 μg/mL, which was higher than that of vitamin C (IC50 value of 0.56 μg/mL). Further, MIC and MBC for the V. oxyodontha Boiss extract against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were 62.5 and 125 mg/mL, as well as 31.25 and 62.5 mg/mL, respectively.

The results of GC-MS demonstrated that the EO of the V. oxyodontha Boiss plant contains antioxidant and antibacterial compounds. Its antioxidant properties are higher than vitamin C. The highest diameter of the inhibition zone caused by the methanol extract of the V. oxyodontha Boiss plant was against S. aureus and E. coli (23.7 ± 0.29 mm and 15.65 ± 0.33 mm, respectively). Compared with the antibiotics vancomycin, the Vaccaria oxyodontha Boiss represented a stronger inhibitory effect in the inhibition of S. aureus (P < 0.05).

Many couples never refer to a therapist or counseling centers in courts while they suffer from various degrees of marital dissatisfaction and experience emotional divorce. The impacts of marital dissatisfaction are more lasting than divorce and extend to people who are close to couples and their acquaintances, especially children. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on domestic violence and the attitude to life of women with emotional divorce.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pretest-posttest control group design. Forty women experiencing emotional divorce visiting the counseling centers of Ahvaz in 2021 were selected using convenience sampling and randomly divided into intervention (n = 20) and control (n = 20) groups. Participants completed the Domestic Violence Questionnaire and life orientation test in the pretest and posttest. The intervention group received eight 90-minute sessions of ACT. Data were analyzed using univariate analysis of covariance.

The means ± standard deviations of post-test scores related to domestic violence and attitude to life in the experimental group were 48.90 ± 6.99 and 25.65 ± 3.31, respectively, which improved compared to the post-test of the control group. The results suggested that ACT improved domestic violence (F = 421.04, P < 0.001) and attitude to life (F = 172.37, P < 0.001) in the posttest.

This study achieved promising results concerning the applicability of ACT. ACT was effective in reducing domestic violence and improving attitudes to life in women with emotional divorce.

This study first evaluated the fungal contamination of tools and surfaces in wrestling and bodybuilding clubs in Hamedan province, western Iran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2018 to May 2019 focusing on nine wrestling and bodybuilding clubs in different areas of Hamedan province. The sterile carpet method (10 × 10) was used for sampling from mats floor and wall, bath and WC, locker room and parquet surfaces, and environmental air. Common mediums and methods in mycology were employed to culture samples and detect grown fungi.

The most frequently isolated fungal genera were Rhizopus (24%), Penicillium (24%), Aspergillus flavus (23%), Aspergillus niger (19%), yeast (7%), Scopulariopsis (6%) Mucor, and Ulocladium (1%). Based on the results, no dermatophyte contamination was detected in any of the samples. The most contaminated surfaces (place of sampling) were wrestling mats (95.7%). The highest and lowest prevalence rates of fungal contamination in this study were found in Razan (87.5%) and Malayer (72.7%), respectively.

According to our results, the most contaminated surfaces belonged to wrestling mats. Thus, we would suggest that common-sense hygiene measurements should be continued, including showering after every encounter, washing practice clothes daily, and disinfecting mats daily.

The petrochemical industry as a modern industry, despite the positive outcomes it has brought to mankind, is a source of gaseous and aerosol pollution and industrial effluents on a large scale, which can have direct and indirect destructive effects on the environment and human life. This study investigated the relationship between the amount of airborne benzene with the amount of trans,trans-muconic acid (ttMA) and hippuric acid metabolites in the urine of workers working in petrochemical complexes with different exposure times and methods.

For this purpose, breathing the air of different petrochemical plants of Bou Ali Sina was sampled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 1501 method, and the urine of workers (n = 24) was also sampled in these units. In addition, the amount of benzene in the air samples and the amount of urinary metabolites of ttMA and hippuric acid were analyzed in urine samples sent to the laboratory using a high-performance gas chromatography-mass spectrometry device and gas-liquid chromatography. Finally, urinary creatinine was measured by an ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer.

The results showed that the concentration of benzene in the aromatic unit had the highest value, which had a higher level of pollution than both standards. The xylene mixing unit with a concentration of 3.6 μg/m3, the loading unit with a benzene content of 3.4 μg/m3, and a tank unit with 2.8 μg/m3 had a lower amount of benzene pollution compared to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration permissible exposure limit-short-term exposure limit (OSHA PEL-STEL) standard but had higher pollution levels in comparison to the OSHA PEL-TWA (time-weighted average) standard. In the sampling unit of the laboratory with a benzene amount of 0.94 μg/m3 and in the technician unit of the laboratory, the amount of pollution was lower than both OSHA PEL-TWA and OSHA PEL-STEL standards. The aromatic unit demonstrated the highest amount of benzene, while the lowest amount was related to the laboratory section.

The results of the measurement of urinary benzene metabolites revealed that the concentration of urinary phenol and inhaled benzene in evening shift workers was higher than the corresponding amount in the morning shift workers, which may be due to the high level of pollution evenings compared to the morning. On the other hand, the results represented that the average hippuric acid in the exposed people (n = 24) was higher than the control (n = 20) so that it was 0.35 in the exposed and 0.26 in the control subjects. In addition, the average muconic acid in the exposed and control subjects decreased to 1.57 and 0.89, respectively. The minimum and maximum amounts of muconic and hippuric acids in the exposed subjects were 0.97 and 2.62, as well as 0.14 and 0.83, respectively. The maximum and minimum concentrations of muconic and hippuric acids were 2.62 and 0.97, as well as 0.83 and 0.14 in exposed subjects, respectively, which was less than muconic acid.