نشریه بهداشت کار و ارتقای سلامت
سال پنجم شماره 4 (پیاپی 19، زمستان 1400)

Crisis management, as one of the areas of consequence management, can increase crisis resilience and reduce the level of organizational vulnerability in times of crises. Therefore, this study was designed and conducted to assess the components of crisis management in private and public hospitals.

The present study was conducted in 10 hospitals, in 2020. The sample size was estimated to be 200. The components of crisis management in this questionnaire included: management commitment, taking the blame, learning, awareness, preparedness, flexibility and transparency. Data analysis was performed using Independent samples t-test and Chi-square/Fisher exact test.

The results showed that the two groups of public and private hospitals did not have significant differences in terms of individual variables (p<0.05). The crisis management index in the two groups of public and private hospitals was estimated to be 4.11 and 3.22, respectively. The results of comparative assessment of the crisis management components in the two groups revealed that all these components in public hospitals are estimated to be higher than that of the private hospitals, and their differences are also statistically significant (p<0.05).

The findings of the study indicated that although the resilience of private hospitals was higher than average, the comparative assessment of the crisis management components revealed that the level of resilience in times of crises in public hospitals was higher than the private ones. Therefore, the components of crisis management in these hospitals should be improved with a proper design and a comprehensive crisis management program.

Human factors are central and vital issues in different working environments, including industries. The operational processes of a gas company are among the processes in which several accidents have occurred. Accidents are of the most important causes of direct and indirect costs to the industry, so it is necessary to identify the human factors which have the greatest effect on the occurrence of errors regarding accidents, recognize them, and adopt control and preventive strategies to prevent them from happening again. Accordingly, the study of human factors affecting error occurrence is of great importance in industry. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the human factors affecting the occurrence of errors in the operational processes of the gas companies.

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in a gas company. Statistics and documents of the accidents from a 10-year period in the gas company were received from the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) of this center, and examined and analyzed through the methods of human factor analysis and system classification for the oil and gas industry (HFACS-OGI) and root cause analysis (RCA).

The results of applying HFACS-OGI method showed that in level one, error section, subgroup of "perceptual error" ; in level two, subgroup of "human resource management"; in level three, "inadequate supervision"; in level 4, "safety culture" section ;and at level 5, the "legal framework" had the highest percentage. Through the RCA method, the highest frequency was for defects related to work requirements and the lowest frequency was related to disqualification.

Human factors affecting the occurrence of error include cognitive and behavioral characteristics of employees, defects in the operational processes of safety management system, inadequate and proper supervision, lack of/deficiency in training and the employees' practical experience, non-compliance with general safety principles, lack of/deficiency in implementation of control measures regarding the management of the risks approved by the organization , the lack of/defect in the optimal implementation of human resource management, which can be reduced by improving the performance indicators, executive procedures, proper planning, providing  monitoring courses ,and proper supervision .Finally, it was found that HFACS-OGI and RCA methods can be used in similar working environments due to their consistency in presenting the results.

With the advancement of science and technology in third world and developing countries, more and more   harmful factors in the working environment endanger the employees’ lives. One of these detrimental factors is the incompatibility of work with people’s characteristics, which causes musculoskeletal disorders. In developing countries this happens at the cost of musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effect of ergonomic interventions on reducing the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, and finally, use the results obtained to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and improve the working environment among the staff of Qeshm Zinc Smelting company, in 1399.

In this study, staff were randomly evaluated as a case control by the Nordic questionnaire, using QEC method and body map. Ergonomic interventions were then performed on the case group. After one month and four months, re-evaluation was performed by QEC and body map methods.

Findings indicated that 84.21% of the participants had musculoskeletal disorders in the past year before the study. Ergonomic interventions for musculoskeletal disorders in the lower back, shoulders, neck, knees and hands were significantly reduced.ftAer ergonomic interventions, the  risk factor of these disorders was significantly reduced. 

Therefore, by doing ergonomic interventions, including  teaching ergonomic principles, using automatic equipment, etc., musculoskeletal disorders in the back, shoulders, neck and knees were created and musculoskeletal disorders were reduced to 13.58%.

Analyzing the causes of accidents in order to control and prevent their recurrence is of utmost importance. The aim of this study was to combine the two methods of Fishbone and SCAT to analyze the root cause of the accidents, address them in details, and track them in the depth of organizational structures.

This study analyzed the data about accidents using a Fishbone and SCAT Combined Method. Initially, the interface and root causes obtained by the Fishbone Method, as well as control measures were entered into SCAT cause and effect table. The results of the questionnaires were collected, and the causes of accidents were investigated using the Chi-Square test. Data analysis was done using SPSS software version 24.

The findings indicated that the most important direct cause of the accidents was the the variable related to indoor and outdoor environment of the refinery, and the most important root cause of the accident was “unforeseen economic changes such as changing exchange rate, tax rate”, and “lack of a continuous planning for the staff's training”. Increasing the efficiency of training the staff is the most important control measure suggested. There was also a significant relationship between surface and root causes.

According to the statistical test, a systematic connection between root causes and intermediate causes of the accident were found. The combined method presented in this study can meet the needs of different organizations regarding the causes of accidents in many cases, and is currently one of the most important methods. Therefore, it is suggested to combine the SCAT with other methods to analyze the causes of accidents in refinery plants.

One of the most important goals of organizations is to increase the quality of working life of employees and the most important part of employees of organizations are working women who, in addition to personal life responsibility, must have a relatively high quality of work life to be able to meet the goals satisfy the formation of organizations. The present study aims to investigate the situation of identity styles and multiple intelligence and their relationship with quality of working life of female employees at Yazd university in 2019.

This study is descriptive- survey in terms of data collection and pure in terms of purpose. The statistical population of this study consisted of 159 female employees of Yazd university which of 120 employees were selected based on the Krejcie and Morgan table by using simple random sampling method. The scales used to collect data were: Berzonskychr('39')s identity styles scale, Armstrongchr('39')s multiple intelligence scale, and Waltonchr('39')s work life quality questionnaire. The data were analyzed using pearson correlation coefficient, chi- square test, one- sample t- test, analysis of variance with repeated measures and bonferroni test.

The results showed that intrapersonal intelligence and normative identity style were more prevalent among female employees of Yazd university than other types of intelligence and identity style. Quality of working life was average and commitment among female employees was above average, as well as, no relationship was found between identity styles with quality of work life. Also among multiple intelligences, only rational- mathematical intelligence had a positive and significant relationship with quality of working life.

It can be concluded that managers of organizations should strive to employ people with informational and normative identity styles, as well as, provide opportunities to utilize multiple intelligence of employees to increase the quality of working life in order to strengthen the productivity.

   Industrial accidents are among the major problems of today's societies. Studies on accidents indicated that the most important cause of their occurrence was the human factor. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate human error in the operation of furnace using the human event analysis technique in a petrochemical industry.

This was a qualitative and cross-sectional study which was analyzed by directly observing the activities, interviewing the analysis, and reviewing the documents and instructions, tasks and sub-tasks by Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) method, and the results were provided in HTA charts. In the next step, according to Technique for Human Error Analysis (ATHEANA) instructions, the relevant worksheet was completed.

The results indicated that coil breakage or precision instrument connections, improper bypassing of pressure in the paths to rotate the furnace to the atmosphere, or process and leakage of gas lines, flanges and valves whose probability of defect was 0.20, 0.14 and 0.13, respectively, had the highest probability of error. The probability of human error in the operation of the furnace was calculated to be 0.63.

Applying corrective measures such as: selecting skilled people, holding training courses, routine monitoring of temperature, pressure measuring equipment, etc. for proper operation of the apparatus and visual monitoring of all furnace parts, including valves, are some of the things with which the likelihood of human error in the operation of the furnaces was reduced.

In the petrochemical industry, there are various harmful factors that lack of attention and proper management will have adverse consequences for the organization and employees. The aim of this study was to Identifying and assessment the health hazards of the petrochemical industry using the localized JHA method.

In this cross-sectional descriptive study that conducted in one of Iran's petrochemicals, in order to assess the health risk caused by harmful factors was used from localized JHA method. First, after determining the desired job and dividing it into job duties, the number of tasks was specified. Then, in order to calculate the Risk Priority Number (RPN), from multiplication of 3 factors of probability of occurrence, severity and frequency of exposure was used. All calculations were performed by Excell.

The results showed that from 353 calculated risks, 93.48% of the total risks are at the acceptable risk level, 4.82% of the risks are at the low importance level and 1.7% is at risk level with medium importance. Also, at between the studied hazards, ergonomic harmful factors with 22%, had the highest frequency and biological harmful factors with 1% had the lowest frequency of hazards.

Regarding to importance of health hazards, in addition to identifying and evaluating them, it is necessary to determine and implement appropriate management measures to reduce and control of risk levels to prevent from accidents and related occupational diseases and the heavy costs.

Today, it is well-established that, in addition to hearing loss, noise affects the natural physiological functions of the body. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of noise on hearing loss and blood pressure in workers of a steel industry in southwest of Iran.

This study was performed on 54 steel workers. Dosimetry was performed using TES 1358 sound meter and Beurer BC16 blood pressure monitor, respectively. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 24 software at the significant level of 0.05.

There was a significant relationship between hearing loss and sound pressure level in each of the case and control groups (P< 0.05). Despite the significant relationship between hearing loss and age, (P˂0.05), there was no significant relationship between the work experience variable and hearing loss (P> 0.05). Age and work experience had a significant relationship with hearing loss at some frequencies under the study (P˂0.05). There was also a significant difference between the mean of blood pressure in the case and control group (P˂0.05).

The results of this study indicated that exposure to noise increased blood pressure in individuals and the effects of exposure intensified with age. Therefore, control measures such as reducing sound pressure level, training programs and regular screening of the workers' blood pressure are recommended to reduce the effects of noise.