International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics最新文献

This study aimed to assess musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among industrial sewing machine operators through a survey with a descriptive and explanatory design. MSDs and sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms were assessed through the Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire and indoor air questionnaire, respectively. Data were collected from 407 participants randomly and analyzed by frequency, percentages, structural equation modeling and ordinal logistic regression. Most of the participants experienced pain in the lower back (85.0%), shoulders (83.3%), head (79.6%) and neck (76.2%). The most common SBS symptoms were found in the nose (M 3.66). Runny nose, itching and sneezing attacks occurred always in 166 (40.8%), 152 (37.3%) and 195 (47.9%) participants, respectively. Statistically significant relationships were found between environmental factors and SBS symptoms, and SBS symptoms and MSDs. All job-related factors were associated with MSDs in at least one body part. The findings imply the need for an ergonomic intervention to improve sewing workstations.

Objectives: Geriatric nursing assistants often experience low back pain (LBP), which may become persistent and impair daily and occupational functioning. Social determinants of health play a key role in its development. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of persistent LBP and its associated social and working conditions among women working as geriatric nursing assistants in Spain.

Methods: The cross-sectional study included women working as geriatric nursing assistants in Spain. A total of 480 participants were recruited through snowball sampling and completed self-reported questionnaires. The outcome variable was persistent LBP, and predictor variables included sociodemographic factors and work-related conditions. Prevalence of persistent LBP and Poisson regression models were calculated.

Results: The prevalence of persistent LBP was 44.2% (95% confidence interval [39.77, 48.65]), and was associated with older age, low monthly income, living in a region with a low Human Development Index, holding a permanent contract, limited work experience, absence of multiple jobs, high physical demands at work, time pressure and work-home conflict.

Conclusion: Nearly half of the geriatric nursing assistants reported persistent LBP. The condition was linked to work conditions and socioeconomic factors, highlighting the need for interventions addressing both physical and psychosocial stressors.

Previous research has demonstrated how the leader-subordinate relationship can impact safety, but their respective perceptions could have different influences on different elements of safety-related behaviors. The current study analyzed a large sample (N > 11,000) to explore how leader and subordinate perceptions could influence three safety-related issues: safety underreporting, where the individual knowingly withholds safety information from the organization; near misses, where the situation could have resulted in injury but did not; and frequency of actual safety incident reporting. As both leader perceptions and subordinate perceptions became more negative, problematic safety-related issues increased. Leader and subordinate perceptions most strongly affected safety underreporting with a moderate relationship to the likelihood of experiencing a near miss, and the weakest (although statistically significant) relationship to actual safety reporting. Although safety underreporting is affected most, leader and subordinate perceptions can have a robust influence upon multiple aspects of safety climate.

Objectives: Craftspeople are exposed to climatic changes while engaging in high levels of occupational physical activity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the synergies of occupational physical activity, effects of climate change and tangibility concerning the working conditions and health of German craftspeople.

Methods: A questionnaire survey was conducted with 1830 responding German craftspeople using computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATIs). Quantitative analyses included physical activity, environmental awareness and the impact of climate change on daily work. An open question was assessed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The effects of climate and environmental change on daily work are most noticeable for men (30.6%), older workers (age 50-59 years, 31.7%), construction site workers (41.9%) and those who engage in physically demanding work (35.2%). The participants reported extreme weather conditions in combination with occupational physical activities as the most tangible effects of climate change with physical health effects.

Conclusions: Craftspeople do feel the effects of climate change in their daily work and at the same time have a high level of environmental awareness. Given the prevalence of high levels of work-related physical activity, more attention should be paid to health risks and preventive measures should be taken.

Sudden mechanical failure in a ship crane due to mishandling presents significant safety risks for seafarers and dock workers. While previous research has focused on crane maintenance, the risks associated with mishandling during operations remain underexplored. This study introduces a methodology integrating kernel principal component analysis, t-distributed stochastic neighbour embedding and tree analysis. A case study examines 10 years of alarm logs from two 35-ton ship cranes, revealing distinct risk patterns. The crane near the bow recorded 51 alarms when lifting loads above the ship, whereas the crane near crew accommodation logged only 22. Alarm frequency varied by location, with 71.3% of all alarms occurring in a single port over 3.8 days. Additionally, operational timing influenced the alarm distribution - alarms peaked between 00:00 and 05:00 near crew accommodations, whereas bow crane alarms were more frequent from 12:00 to 16:00. These findings highlight the need for targeted operational safety measures.

It is considered important for employees to be able to establish a work-life balance during the adaptation process for changes and managing circumstances that negatively affect their psychological well-being and may cause depression and anxiety as the result of stress factors. The current study aimed to analyze the relationships among perceived organizational support, work-family conflict, cynicism about organizational change, job-related affective well-being and psychological symptoms of white-collar workers. The sample consisted of 202 white-collar workers from urban cities in Turkey. The results from structural equation modeling revealed a good fit for the data. Work-family conflict, organizational change cynicism and job-related affective well-being were found to serially mediate the path from perceived organizational support to psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety and stress. These findings provided an important contribution to the literature by presenting a new and original research model.

Objective: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of enhanced physiologic tremor (EPT) among health personnel and identify common risk factors associated with this condition.

Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted at Benha University Hospital. A total of 535 healthcare professionals (HCPs) were involved in the final analysis. Neurological examinations were conducted under the supervision of the neurology department. Participants were considered to have a tremor according to the Consensus Statement criteria for the diagnosis of tremors. The generalized anxiety disorder assessment, the caffeine consumption questionnaire and the international physical activity questionnaire short-form were used to evaluate anxiety, daily caffeine consumption and physical activity levels, respectively.

Results: The prevalence of EPT among HCPs was 5.42%. There was a statistically significant association between EPT and anxiety, smoking, caffeine consumption, sleep deprivation, past psychiatric history, regular exercising, and drug and substance usage.

Conclusion: This study identified a high prevalence of EPT among HCPs. Factors associated with EPT include age, sleep deprivation, smoking, caffeine consumption, anxiety and psychiatric history. The findings highlight the need for mental health interventions to mitigate the EPT impact. Addressing stress and promoting well-being among HCPs is crucial for improving their work environment and performance.

Objectives: The present study aimed to analyze the prospective impact of wearable sensor-based safety headgear with an Android app interface in environmental heat-stress surveillance.

Methods: The suggested prototype was examined under distinctive locations with individuals carrying out certain work activities.

Results: Monitored thermal indices recorded higher heat exposures under the outdoor condition (with discomfort index [DI] > 32.1 °C) compared to indoors (DI 29 to <32 °C). A rise in users' physiological attributes was linked with the outdoor condition (engaged in heavy workload activity; with average skin temperature = 37.47 °C and eardrum temperature [a core body temperature indicator] = 38.14 °C), followed by the indoor moderate and light work tasks. The assessed heat-stress variables under the targeted environments showed significant variations (one-way analysis of variance, p < 0.01), suggesting that the proposed safety headgear was sensitive to the thermal work settings and the physical job task carried out.

Conclusions: The developed Android app could enable users to assess heat-stress parameters monitored by the proposed safety helmet and keep them aware of thermal work ambience at a personal level. Implementing these kinds of interventions might be helpful in workplace heat-stress surveillance in a cost-effective manner, particularly in low and medium-income countries.

Objectives: Studies have shown that driving fatigue leads to changes in driving behavior. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of sleep deprivation and prolonged driving time on drivers' wrist motion characteristics.

Methods: Seventeen participants were recruited to participate in a 90-min simulated driving experiment after normal sleep and sleep deprivation, and wrist-worn wearable sensors were used to record the acceleration of the driver's wrist and to characterize it in the time domain, frequency domain and entropy. PERCLOS was used as the standard to clarify the wrist motion characteristics of drivers in awake and fatigued states and to explore the trend of wrist motion characteristics with prolonged driving time.

Results: Fifteen participants completed two experiments. Sleep deprivation and driving time prolongation induced driving fatigue, which increased the low-frequency power (p < 0.05) and decreased the entropy (p < 0.05) of the driver's wrist acceleration, leading to a decrease in the driver's subtle adjusting maneuvers to the steering wheel and an increase in the rapid and large adjustments. Sleep deprivation led to an earlier onset of driving fatigue.

Conclusion: Wrist movement characteristics can be used to reflect the driver's fatigue state, which is of great value for road traffic accident prevention.

The aim of this study was to evaluate muscular activity during one-handed handling. Twenty right-handed male participants volunteered to take part, and electromyography signals were recorded from 14 upper limb muscles. The independent variables were direction and muscle, and the dependent variables were muscular activity and activated duration. The findings from the study revealed that the upward direction exhibited significantly higher muscular activity compared to other directions. This could be attributed to the prolonged movement time and the need for lifting above the shoulder in the upward direction. The right direction involved abduction and external rotation. It can be inferred that internal rotation had greater strength than external rotation due to the mass of anterior musculature. The external rotation of the glenohumeral joint is considered to have a passive stabilizing effect and promotes scapular stability by preventing interference between the acromion and the greater tubercle of the humerus.