Iran Occupational Health

  Background and aims: Chemical materials are very useful in our lives. Laboratory technicians expose to different chemicals. Long term repeated exposures to hazardous chemicalsmay lead to chronic effects. In this research the risk of occupational exposure to hazardous chemicals in laboratories of educational and therapeutic centers of Qom University of medical sciences were assessed.

  Methods: The method of this research was derived from Malaysian Department of Health and Safety. Several steps were involved in this research including preparation of data gathering tools, selection of team members, job analysis, identification of hazardous chemical materials, determination of hazard and exposure rate and risk assessment. For data analysis Excel 2010 & SPSS16 software and for determining the correlation between parameters Mann-Whitney, Kruskal - Wallis and chi square tests were used.

  Results: There were no hazardous materials in 30% of laboratories. However, the risk of exposure in 6.67% of laboratories was high, in 20% was moderate and in 43.33% was low. In this study exposure to hazardous chemical materials determined 1.205±1.0047 (mean±sd), hazard rating 2.307±1.64 and risk level 1.769±1.22. Because of exposure to Formaldehyde, pathology labs were the most hazardous area. There was no significant correlation between marital status, job experience, educational level, passing work related training and risk (p>0.05).

  Conclusion: Based on our results, 26.67% of laboratories had considerable risk. Therefore, in order to control such risks elimination, substitution, engineering and administrative control measures and the use of appropriate personal protective equipment are recommended.