Iran Occupational Health

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Background and aims

Scientific and industrial development has led to increased production,which has been associated with different complications, including occupational stress, and increased incidence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Musculoskeletal disorders are

frequent causes of absenteeism in developed countries. We designed this study to assess musculoskeletal disorders and occupational stress among video display terminal (VDT) workers in comparison with other office workers.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study on 72 VDT workers (case) and 145 office workers (control). In this study we used Nordic and Osipow questionnaires in order to evaluate musculoskeletal disorders and job stress, respectively. The questionnaires were filled by direct interview. T test, chi square, Fisher test and logistic regression were used for data analysis.

Results

The frequency of musculoskeletal disorders among VDT users in the last 12 months was 46.5%, 20.3%, 5.1%, 12.4% and 57.6% in neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist and low back areas, respectively. The frequency of musculoskeletal complaints in neck, shoulder and wrist and mean score of occupational stress was significantly higher in the case group comparing with control

group, and both results were statistically significant.

Conclusion

VDT working is a high-risk job for musculoskeletal disorders. In this study the frequency of musculoskeletal disorders, especially in high-risk regions for this job, was higher in VDTworkers than other office workers. We recommend to perform other studies in order to find non-ergonomic points and postures in these persons.

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  Background and Aims : Employee examinations are one of the components of occupational health surveillance and the second level of disease prevention. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of general and likely occupational diseases among workers referred to an occupational medicine center in Mashhad and the role of theses examinations in early diagnosis of diseases.

  Methods : This descriptive study was done on the 3248 participants were referred to Shahid Ghodsi occupational medicine center. In this study, subjects were examined by a general physician and based on their exposure para- clinical tests were requested. Then the people who had an abnormality in these tests, were asked about their awareness or unawareness .
Finally, all the information was recorded in the standard examinations form and data were analyzed using SPSS software version 18.

  Results: In this study 81.9% of participants were male and18.1%were female. The mean of age and BMI was 31.18 and 22.7 respectively.The20.9% of the subjects had a history of smoking. In this study, the most common diseases were dyslipidemia (34.3% cholesterol and 14.6% triglyceride elevation), visual acuity reduction (22.9%) and hearing loss (21%).The 84.6% of participants with sensor neural hearing loss, 64.6% of participants with visual acuity reduction and 87.7% of participants with hyperlilipidemia were unaware of their disease.

Conclusion: The findings of this study show that most of participants were unaware of their disease, so pre employment examinations is effective in early detection of diseases of workers

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Background and aims: Blood borne diseases are still one of the major sources of nosocomial infections and are large concern of health personnel because of extension of HIV infection and also transmission of Hepatitis B and C. The aim of this study was to determine the occurrence and risk factors of needle stick and sharps injuries among personnel of a university hospital.

 Methods: In this cross sectional study, a total of 168 nurses, midwives, physicians, laboratory technicians, operation technicians, nurse aids, and anesthesia personnel, involved in the direct management and care of patients answered to questions about occurrence of needle stick and sharps injuries and some potential risk factors. The questionnaire including personal and occupational characteristics was assessed for validity and reliability.

Results: The rate of needle stick injury was 1.4 per person in a year. 42.9% of personnel had at least one needle stick injury in the last year. About 71 % of the participants had an experience of needle stick injuries and only 29% of these had not any injury from needle stick duration entire work career. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the most important risk factor for needle stick injuries was re-capping needles, (OR: 2.5, 95% CI 1.5- 4.8).

Conclusion: The rate of needle stick injuries is fairly high among health care personnel and there are concerns about transmission of blood borne diseases. Recapping needles is performing by many personnel. Besides the proper educations, it needs to provide safety devices to reduce such injuries.

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Background and aims: Assessment of performance indicator is one of the most important issues in the managerial systems that should be done in a correct way. The accuracy of the assessment is influenced by the assessors' judgment. This study was done in order to determine pattern of assessing of HSE unit performance in the steel industries.

Methods: In this study, 7 experts were defined indicators for assessing the performance of HSE units in the steel industry. Then, the weights of the indicators were obtained by fuzzy linguistic terms. Then, one of the largest steel industries was assessed by using normalized weights of the indicators.

Results: the results of this study showed, that the most important index in Health domain is occupational disease control program (0.057) and the most important index in safety domain is fire hazard control program (0.062) and in Environmental domain was air pollution control program (0.054). Also, the results showed that the most common causes of reduced HSE unit performance were related to health and environment domains indices.

Conclusion: Results showed that the majority of safety indicators were influenced by HSE Managerial Systems in the short term; however, this system needs more time to show its efficacy in the Health and Environmental domains indicators. 

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Background and aims: One of the factors affecting the health of people in the community is the health status of food procurement distribution and supply. Overlooking and controlling of these centers is the responsibility of environmental health inspectors. Considering the importance of interaction between environmental health inspectors and providers of food supply, distribution and supply centers, and its impact on the implementation of health rules and regulations by the principal, the main objective of this study is to identify the factors affecting the interaction between environmental health inspectors and providers of procurement centers, Distributing and supplying food, as well as identifying the weaknesses and strengths of the system and the environmental health inspection method from the perspective of inspectors and operators. The health condition of supply centres, distribution and supply of food affects the health of the people of the society, which is why it is important to supervise the control of these centres in order to provide food security at a high degree. In Iran, monitoring centres, distribution and supply of food in order to protect the health of consumers from these centres will be directed at the Health Department of Medical Sciences of the Universities of Medical Sciencesacross the country. The proper monitoring and control of these centres has an effective and effective role in preventing and spreading epidemics and epidemics, causing public health and preventing waste of financial resources. In industrialized countries, about 30 % of people are suffering from water and food, while in third world countries, about 80 % of all diseases and 33 per cent of deaths are caused by water use and contaminated food. Therefore, experts and health experts have an important role in planning, implementation and management of health activities all over the local, national and global levels, as part of the advisory process in planning, implementation and management of health activities all over the local, national and global levels. control, distribution, and supply of food were always accompanied by many problems and defects, which in many cases caused the dissatisfaction of consumers. One of the most important of these problems is the failure of the operators to comply with the relevant health laws so that most of the time the enforcement of the regulations and health considerations have been accompanied by the resistance and refusal of the operators. For example, in 2016 alone 40 percent of the supply, distribution and supply of food in the country were in good health condition. there are few studies and researches on the issues of the work of health inspectors of the environment, which are not widely distributed to the long history and variety of work and function of the health inspectors of the environment and its importance. according to the importance of interaction between the health inspectors and the operators of supply centers, distribution and supply of food and its impact on the enforcement of laws and health orders from the incumbent, there has been no specific qualitative study in this regard. the main purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting the interaction between the health inspectors of the environment and operators of supply centers, distribution and supply of food as well as identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the system and the environment of the environment from the viewpoint of inspectors and operators and became aware.                                                                                           
Methods: This study is an applied study, and qualitative analysis of quality content analysis has been done. Participants included eight environmental health experts and six providers of food procurement, distribution and supply centers, Sample selection criteria were sample-based samples that were selected based on objective sampling. The criterion for the determination of the number of samples in this research was theoretical saturation of the researcher. Data was collected using semi-structured individual interviews. Interviews were recorded and then rewritten and analyzed using Maxqda 10 software and codes, subclasses and classes were identified And then for each of the 24 subclasses, a separate interpretation was written. in order to identify the key concepts and concepts in the text, the text of the interviews was written in line and word to each sentence or the keyword, and the initial codes were identified. In the next step, the same initial codes are grouped into one sub - floor and then the main classes of combination of the following categoriesCommon concepts were formed. It has been tried to make the highest heterogeneity among the classes and the highest heterogeneity among the classes. Initially, the classes were named, but it did not have the name of abstraction. By performing a continuous comparison of the same classes, the same themes were merged and finally extracted from the main themes. Also, for assessing codes, subclasses and classes derived from Densin and Linak criteria, including credibility, transferability, trust, and verifiability were used. to determine the validity and validity of the data, the researcher has a long - term relationship with research sites that has helped attract the confidence of the participants and the correct understanding of the environment by the researcher, the maximum diversity in selecting the participants and the right strategy in selecting the sample is to reassure the participants about confidentiality of information and their freedom in the study including means of credit enhancement. To provide data confidence, after analyzing the text of interviews by the researcher, the text of some of the interviews was available to some expert colleagues in order to compare them with the coding of the data, the data can be provided. in fact, the similarity of the second - type code was provided by the researcher's coding so that in the context of one of the interviews, 85 % of the codes written by researcher and the latter were similar. It was, in fact, used the review method by colleagues in this way that the text was copied and coded and analyzed by the colleagues in order to obtain consensus agreements in order to provide the data transmission capability, interview questions, codes, categories and generally the findings of the study were related to other knowledgeable individuals and experts and their comments about the fit of the findings were examined. in order to verify the data and determine the authenticity of the codes from the interviews, the information was confirmed by the participants. So, after interviewing, data mining and coding, the research has again turned to individual participants in the study and examined their approval from the literature and thus evaluation of samples was done from the literature and thus agreement and approval of the participants were obtained.
Results: participation in this research is the first group, experts and health inspectors of the environment with an average age of 41 (65)from both sexes (seven male and one female), with a bachelor's degree (six)and master " s (two), with an average of 75 / 17 (43), and in the second category, operators and operators Managers of the development, distribution and supply of food with an average age of 45 (65), all males, with certificate (one person)and diploma (four persons), with the average history record of 25 years (43 years). After analyzing the data in this study, 338 primary codes were extracted. After analyzing the extracted codes, the codes were classified in six main categories and 24 sub-classes. The main classes are the factors related to education, the focus of the monitoring system, legal measures, the inspection method, the acceptance of the rules by the curator, the attention of the inspector to the managerial and geographical conditions.
Conclusion: The opinions expressed in the interviews by the two groups of inspectors and attendants have many points of contact. This sharing of views between inspectors and attendants can provide the interaction fields between them as well. According to the expressed opinions, it is necessary to modify some methods and approaches in the health inspection of the food procurement, distribution and supply centers, Complete lack of focuson legal tools to change the behavior of operators and paying attention to the implementation of participatory training methods that have been less considered to date to increase the co-operation of service providers and agreed upon by both group of interviewees. Also, the entry of Self-reported health companies to the field of environmental health inspection and its consequence was one of the important issues that the inspectors and the operators looked at in this study with suspicion. Therefore, more attention should be paid to its implementation. The opinions of the interviewees (two groups of inspectors and operators)have a lot of sharing points about the various issues in health inspections. it is suggested that the opinions of operators as one of the stakeholders on the environment of the environment in decisions are investigated. The sharing of opinion between inspectors and operators can provide the fields of interaction between inspectors and operators. According to most participants, the necessity of reforming some methods and approaches is essential in health inspection of supply centres, distribution and supply of food. The focus and focus of the training and empowerment of investigators and the training of operators in modern ways and the lack of complete focus on legal instruments for the change of operators ' behaviour and attention to the implementation of corporate educational practices that have been less noticed today is necessary to enhance the cooperation of operators. It is also possible to consider some of the inspections as an advisory and training inspection at the curator " s workplace. according to the inspectors, under article 13 of the executive code of article 13 of the provisions of article 13 of the provisions of article 13 of the provisions of article 13 of the provision of edible, drinking, cosmetic and sanitary procedures and changing the procedures of legal action in the comprehensive audit system, the auditors are not yet familiar with the law and the executive procedure of recording checks and carrying out legal action has encountered some problems. On the other hand, the introduction of self - declaration to the area of health inspection and its outcome was an important issue in which the study was regarded by investigators and officials in doubt and doubt. Therefore, further consideration should be made about its implementation. finally, with regard to the extent of the activity of health inspectors from medical sciences at the university of medical sciences throughout the country as well as the small number of studies and researches related to various fields of auditors, inspectors are scientifically studied and analyzed and the effectiveness of activities such as inspection and sampling of food is analyzed as well as the effect of inspection from operators ' point of view. From the strengths of this study, it is possible to point out that for the first time with a qualitative study of defects and challenges and views of both groups of health inspectors of the environment and operators of supply centers, distribution and supply of food were examined and explored.