Prevalence of Occupational Contact Dermatitis and its related Factors among Surgical Technologists in Five Educational Centers of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences

Occupational skin diseases and hand contact dermatitis specifically are among the most common occupational diseases among the healthcare workers. Since surgical technologists have contact with allergens and irritant substances are more susceptible to hand contact dermatitis. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of occupational hand contact dermatitis and effective factors among surgical technologists in five educational centers affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences.

The present cross-sectional study was conducted over 125 surgical technologists working in the hospitals affiliated with Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences who were selected via census sampling. Later, 97 participants who met the inclusion criteria were investigated. Data were collected by Nordic Occupational Skin questionnaire (NOSQ-2002) through interview and analyzed by SPSS software version 23.

The findings indicated that 68% of the examined technologists were female and 57.7% were over 37 years old. The prevalence of hand dermatitis was 45.4% (44 people). The highest prevalence was observed at the back of hands (24.7%) and between fingers (17.5%).  Contact hand dermatitis had a significant correlation with the participants’ gender (p = 0.002), work experience (p = 0.028), and frequency of hand washes (p = 0.021). Moreover, having a history of eczema and allergy (P-Value≤ 0.01) was significantly effective in increasing hand contact dermatitis.

The prevalence of hand contact dermatitis is high among surgical technologists. Therefore, hospital managers are required to plan for preventive measures and control the current situation. Furthermore, future researchers are recommended to carry out more studies on allergic dermatitis.