نشریه طب کار
سال دوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 2، زمستان 1389)

Excessive daytime sleepiness and other sleep disorders are receiving much attention as a cause of work accidents. Sleep disorders can disturb sleep and waking alertness. While the pilots and other flight crews suffer from sleep disorders, they will be unable to monitor airplane systems. This will reduce the safety of the flight. The aim of this study is assessment and analysis of prevalence,severity, and predictive factors of sleep disorders (insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness) among flight crews.The sample was composed of 550 flight crews.Subjects were derived from a random sample of flight crews. They anonymously answered a questionnaire on their demographics, sleep habits, and work characteristics. Furthermore, they were asked to answer to standard questionnairesabout sleepiness and insomnia. Excessive daytime sleepiness was considered in them with indexes 10 or more in the ESSMean number of sleep hour per day was 6.8 ± 1.5; 39% Slept lower than 6 hours.Other major findings were as follows: 56.1 % of the flight crews had difficulty in falling asleep, 41.6% Had difficulty in staying asleep, and 58.6% had problem with waking up too early. Overall, 45.5% were dissatisfied with sleep patterns and 51.9 % had an abnormal ISI (≥8). Our results showed a high prevalence of excessive daytime sleepiness, and insomnia in flight crews.

Mother's physical activity and occupationare two factors thatare supposed to have a role in producing low birth weight and premature birth. Severe physical work is an independent risk factor for premature infants. Thisstudywas designed to evaluate the effect of shiftworkandthe amountof physical activityduring pregnancy on birth weightandgestational age.In a cross-sectional study,considering inclusion criteriawe selected 540 persons from employed womenwho were referredto hospitals for delivery in Tehran during a year.After delivery, allrequired datawas gatheredby interview andpatient records.We analyzed data by SPSS (ver. 18) using chi square,t test, one-way-ANOVAand logistic regression.The mean mother's age, Newborn's birth weight, and gestational age was 25.3years, 2726±457 g, and 36.9±2.4 weeks, respectively. Inthisstudy, a significant correlation between thefrequency ofnewbornswithlow birth weight and mother's shiftwork wasobserved (p= 0.001);butthis correlation was not observed forfrequency of preterm infants.During pregnancy, shift work has a significant role in causing low birth weight.

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs) are a common health problem and a major cause of disability. In order to control of musculoskeletal disorder risk, it is so important to understand how these disorders develop and manifest themselves in society. In order to assess exposure to risks for WMSDs and provide a basis for ergonomic interventions, this study was done for posture evaluation in FRO- ALEAGE factory workers of Kerman. this is a descriptive cross-sectional study that accomplished using OWAS, RULA, QEC software method for evaluation of incidence of MSDS.finding of this study showed that the duties"mineral stone breaker, spout cleaner, outside cleaner and stoker" are the most hazardous tasks. Adjustment of work station, work load reduction and designing of suitable work stations are our recommendation for improvement of work conditions. assessing results of RULA and QEC revealed strong relation and correlation between twomethods. So we recommend using these 2 methods for posture evaluation of workers in similar tasks.

Occupational Asthma is characterized by reversible airway obstruction, either spontaneously or with treatment, airway inflammation and increased airway responsiveness due to workplace exposure. It is the most common occupational lung disease in developed countries. One of causative agent is metal fume that may be encountered in steel industries. In this study we determined occupational asthma prevalence in one steel factory and then we classified results according to various workshops.

In this cross sectional study we determined workshops for 450 workers of steel industry by questionnaire. Then cross shift spirometry was done in all of them.

In cross shift spirometry we detected 14 occupational asthma cases. Highest prevalence was in catering (25%) and other workshops according to prevalence were welding (10%), construction (7%), scrap (5%), roller and lathes and melting (3%).

There is great variability for occupational asthma in different workshops of steel industry. Highest prevalence was in catering that its exposures is different from other workshops in steel industry. It seems that this kind of exposures is more asthmogen than metal fumes

The cost of stress related diseases like storks, hypertension, and depression is very high and absenteeism, disability and preterm death duo to them threaten the productivity. So interaction between stress and cardiovascular disease must be cleared. This research was done on the 224 male workers of a transportation terminal in Tehran. We use the OSIPOW questionnaire to measure the job stress and the cardiovascular risk factor obtained from the results of periodic exam of the workers in workplace. 0.4% was in low stress category, 17% in low-moderate, and 78% in moderate-severe and 4.5% in severe stress category. There was no statistically meaningful correlation between stress and FBS, TG, CHOL, pack years of smoking, BMI. There was only a weak correlation between job stress and diastolic blood pressure. great majority of work force were in high stress categories. There are two explanations for no correlation we found: relatively young study population, healthy worker effect.

Whole body vibration (WBV) is a form of cumulative trauma that long in time cause of prostates,hemorrhoid, cardiovascular disorder, herniation and disk degeneration. The aim of this study is evaluation of correlation between neck pain with whole body vibration in heavy equipment drivers.

For evaluation correlation between WBV with neck pain we select two groups of drivers. First group were Benz truckdrivers.WithinANSI 2003 standard first group are high risk for health to exposurewith WBV (r.m.s 2.9 m/s²) and second group were Samand automotive drivers without risk for health with r.m.s0.4 m/s².Each group contains 100persons and factors suchas age, smoking, body mass Index (BMI), driving duration in addition to WBV and thenassociation with neck pain were assessed.

Association between neck pain with age, prehistory of driving and WBV were static significant and association with BMI, smoking were negative.Relevant to logistic regression analysis totality of age, WBV and prehistory of driving variable can predict 11 presentof neck pain in truck driver so most effect size between these variables correlated with WBV with odds ratio 2.65.

With attention of hazards of WBV on the health system of heavy equipment drivers application of suspension design for isolation of WBVis necessary. It sounds ergonomic factors like awkward posture and static load are the most predictor for neck pain in truck drivers.

More than 8-12% of healthy people suffered from sleep disorders worldwide. This problem evaluated among guards in a little past studies. We aimed to assess this defect among hospital guards of Iran university of Medical Sciences.Materials: 74 guards filled out two different questionnaires aboutsleep quality, ESS and PSQI. Demographic data were obtained based on another self-designed questionnaire.All data were analyzedand scores of the questionnaires were compared among guards of different wards. The urgencyguards of Rasul e Akram hospital reflected more disorders than the other groups. Marriage state wasaffected on final results, despite cigarette smoking and obesity had shown no significantly effects. Sleep hygiene may have a trouble situation among guards and modification of the sleep habit could improve the majority of the disorder.

Occupational accidents are one of the great problems in the world and they created greatest and most hardship damages, because the damage of accidents can affect on peoples mental and body health then this study have been performed intending to understanding relationship of quality of life and occupational accidents. This study is case-control and sample size of case group were 113 worker which consist of affected persons by occupational accidents in RudbarLorestan Dam & plant during of 1384-88 and sample size of control group are 113 which these were matched with the case group by age and they didnt expose to occupational accidents. Search tools is quality of life questionnaire-SF36- have been translated to Persian that its reliability and validity have been approved. The workers were asked fill in questionnaire. The date were analized by SPPS-17 and by Kruskal-Wallis and Man-Whitney tests and spearman correlation coefficient. This study results indicated that average scores of quality of life dimensions in case and control group were physical functioning 86.23±21.20 and 90.17±17.87, role limitation due to physical problem 61.50±38.24 and 78.76±32.77, bodily pain 63.04±30.7 and 83.65±21.96, general health 61.55±19.7 and 58.61 ±17.1, vitality 61.32±20.7 and 63.31±14.16, social functioning 50.33±15.53 and 58.61±17.1,role limitations due to emotional problems 54.57 ±38.59 and 70.2±37.36, mental health 65.65± 18.61 and 65.2±16.2, respectively. According to the obtained results, physical component summary of injured workers had significant differences (p<0.005) in comparison to control group(non- injured subjects), but in mental component summery of life quality were not founded significant different. Unhealthy and unsafe work conditions and occupational injuries can affect and reduce quality of life.