ABSTRACT
With increased use of neurotoxic agents in manufacturing industries, hazardous effects of neurotoxic agents pose significant problems in protecting health of workers who work in these industries. A normal range of neurobehavioral performance is required 10 study hazardous effects of neurotoxic agents among workers. However, such reference for Korean population is not available yet. The objective of this study is to estimate a normal range of neurobehuvioral test performance of female workers in Korea. Data for neurobehavioral test performance developed by the world Health organization were obtained from 165 female workers. Study Subjects, 140 production workers and 25 clerks, who voluntarily participated in this study were not occupationally exposed to neurotoxic agents. The mean age and the mean education years of them were 32 years and 10.9 years, respectively. Santa Ana dexterity, pursuit aiming, digit symbol, simple reaction time, and Benton visual retention tests among the Neurobehavioral Core Test Battery(NCTB) were included in the evaluation. Subjects were interviewed by a trained interviewer for their detailed occupational history. Mean(+/-SD) performance of the participants were: 45.7+/-7.1 and 41.9+/-6.4 in the Santa Ana dexterity test of the preferred and non-preferred hands; 191.9+/-38.6 in correct dot of the pursuit aiming test; 57.7+/-16.0 in the digit symbol test; 274.8+/-44.6 msec in the mean simple reaction time and 70.5+/-69.0 msec in the mean standard deviation of it; and 7.8+/-1.7 in the Benton visual retention test. Most neurobehavioral performance scores were correlated significantly with age and educational level. Educational level was found to be a significant independent variable which was associated with all test scores. Age was significantly associated with scores of pursuit aiming and digit symbol tests.