Archives Of Occupational Health
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Jan 2017

ccupational environments are full of wide spectrum of hazardous agents and situations. In its classic view, chemical hazards, safety issues and accidents are highlighted. However, from world war II till now, the paradigm shifted toward the other side of workplace hazards, ergonomics and psychological agents. Ergonomic hazards are rarely directly killer or cause death.
They place a huge burden of problems
during years on personnel health and safety. Musculoskeletal disorders are among the most prevalent ergonomic related discomfort in the workplaces. Increase in human errors, is another consequence of bad ergonomic conditions. Recently mental workloads and behavioral climate of the workplace are also considered as the important issues in occupational health. Problems like bullying in the workplace, workplace violence and lack of social support in the workplace are rising. Management of these issues are very important in reducing the unwanted health outcomes and hence increasing the wellbeing, productivity and efficiency of workers. In this issue of the Archives of Occupational Health we have several papers about workability index, ergonomic evaluation of the work postures, and mental disturbance due to the occupational noise exposure. Each of these topics are susceptible to put substantial ergonomic and mental burden on the workers. Therefore, assessment and management of these sort of exposure can enhance the wellbeing and finally the productivity. I as the editor of the Archives of Occupational Health hope to these papers shed the light on the less elaborated part of occupational exposures and hazards and give us better insight toward assessment and management of them in the work environments

Noise as one of the common hazardous factors in the work environments, causes adverse effects on the mental health of individuals in addition to physical problems. This study was conducted to measure the exposure of workers to noise in a construction workshop and assess its association with noise disturbance. A total of 96 employees of a construction workshop were considered in this study and were divided into four working groups: executive, administrative, supervisory and machinery. Noise exposure of workers assessed according to ISO 9612: 2009. The noise disturbance questionnaire was also completed by participants. The results obtained from the noise exposure measurement showed that the mean of equivalent sound level in employees of administration section was 82.28, in administrative section was 66.52, in supervisory section was 76.43 and in machinery section was 78.45 dB. The results of noise disturbance showed that 25% of workers rated noise in the work environment as very disturbing. The results of regression analysis showed that the type of occupation associated with disturbance of subjects with correlation coefficient of 0.413. According to the results of dosimetry and self-reported disturbance, the noise exposure level and noise disturbance of work environment due to sound sources are high. Administrative solutions need to be provided to reduce the exposure of workers to noise.

Human error is more prevalent among nurses than other health care occupations. These mistakes are used as important index for determination of the safety of patients in hospitals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the different factors resulting in the occurrence of medication mistakes in an educational hospital. This study was performed on 236 nurses working in a hospitals affiliated to Babol University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The data collection tools were demographic and organizational information questionnaire, containing questions about the main causes of medication mistakes. Data were analyzed using SPSS software using descriptive statistic and analytical statistics such as independent t-test and one-way ANOVA. The lowest and the highest score among the four dimensions of the causes of medication mistakes questionnaire were related to the dimension for nursing management (mean=3.13, SD= 0.66) and causes related to nurses (mean=3.54, SD= 0.68), respectively. Also, based on Pearson Correlation, there was a significant and direct correlation between all the four dimensions of the questionnaire and the demographic and organizational factors of nurses. Only the shift work variable of the employees had a significant statistical relationship with the final score of the causes of medication mistakes. Nursing staffs need to pay more attention to possible causes of medication errors such as reducing workload and reducing the working hours of nurses, because the mentioned factors can lead to fatigue and decrease of concentration of nurses and may increase the possibility of occurrence of mistake.

The basis of welfare and health in all individuals is their work ability. Many factors such as work and working conditions, fatigue, and individual characteristics affect the work ability. In the present study, we evaluated the work ability among workers employed in a ceramic industry and determined the relationship between fatigue areas.
The present study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. 200 subjects were randomly selected and investigated. This study was conducted using two standard questionnaires of Work Ability Index (WAI) and Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI). Data were analyzed by SPSS software.
Mean general fatigue score was of 9.65 (SD=2.88) and the mean motivation score was 7.11 (SD=2.45). There was a significant difference in fatigue in different job groups in terms of work experience (P With the increase of the fatigue score, the score of the work ability index decreased. Better recognition of factors creating fatigue and providing appropriate strategies can be effective in reducing this factor.

Welding industry is one of the most dangerous industries in the world. Because of the nature of their jobs, welders are exposed to serious injuries. The present study aimed to investigate the effective factors on the use of respiratory protection devices in welding workshops.
In this cross-sectional study, 180 welders were studied in Gonabad city. A respiratory protection inventory was used to investigate the effective factors on the use of respiratory protection devices based on the health belief model in welders. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.
The working hours were 1.39 (8.25, the respiratory protection score was 10.12 (91.25). In this study, which was carried out on 180 people, there was a significant correlation between the score of respiratory protection and marital status and working shift. However, there was no significant relationship between respiratory protection score and the level of education and type of employment.
The results of this study revealed that the respiratory protection score in the studied welders is moderate and should be considered by managers and the relevant authorities

Spending a significant part of the daily in workplace has led to reduction in the time of rest and recreation of people. Therefore, considering the importance of the potential effect of mental work load on work ability, the present study was conducted to determine the relationship between mental workload and work ability in workers of a food industry.
This cross-sectional study performed on 40 workers in a food industry in Qom province, Iran in 2017. Three demographic questionnaires, NASA-Tlx mental workload index and work ability index (WAI) were used for data collection. Finally, data were analyzed using SPSS software.
The results obtained from examining the relationship between work ability index and mental workload index in the studied industry showed high workload index score, however, there was no significant relationship between these two indexes (P = 0.07). results of regression analysis showed that only age of people has a significant relationship with the results of WAI.
The mental workload index among workers of food industry was very high, which can be attributed to strict supervision due to the importance of food hygiene. High mental workload can affect human error and work efficiency of the worker.

Occupational cancers account for a major part of cancers. So far, various occupational factors have been recognized as a risk factor involved in the development of different occupational cancers. Prostate cancer is one of the cancers on which various studies have been carried out to examine the role of occupational exposures. The studies have introduced numerous occupational factors and jobs regarding this cancer. The results of studies in this regard have some contradictions. In this short review, occupational risk factors in the development of occupational cancers have been studied. The focus of this study is mainly on the factors, while occupations have not been examined in depth.