Investigation of occupational fatigue and safety climate among nurses using the structural equation model.

BACKGROUND: Nursing is associated with many stressful situations that can lead to fatigue, reduced efficiency, and physical and mental illness. Safety climate is one of the most important indicators of safety management performance assessment that assesses employees' attitudes towards safety issues. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between safety climate and occupational fatigue in nurses. METHOD: This descriptive-analytical study was performed on nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Zabol University of Medical Sciences in 2019. 143 nurses were selected by the proportional sampling method and entered the study. Demographic questionnaires, Occupational Fatigue Inventory (SOFI), and Nurses' Safety Assessment Questionnaire were used for data collection. Statistical tests, including Independent T-Test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used to analyze the results using SPSS software version 21, and the multivariate structural equation was used for modeling. RESULTS: The mean scores of safety climate and occupational fatigue were 67.15±12.73 and 85.09±41.49, respectively. Job and demographic variables except for the second job (P-value = 0.065) had a significant effect on the variables of safety climate and occupational fatigue. There were also higher scores for occupational fatigue and all of its subscales in the group of women compared to the group of men. CONCLUSION: The results showed that occupational and demographic variables have significant effects on safety climate and occupational fatigue. There was a significant relationship between demographic variables of age, work experience, and education level with safety climate. There was also a significant relationship between education level, job satisfaction, satisfaction with colleagues and work experience with occupational fatigue. Therefore, paying attention to fatigue and safety climate of nurses in workplaces is recommended.

Air Surveillance for Viral Contamination with SARS-CoV-2 RNA at a Healthcare Facility.

The transmission pathway of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 also called COVID-19 disease) in indoor environments are the main area of contention between health systems and scientists. In this context, little has been investigated about the collection of airborne viral shedding. Here, we collected air samples from 24 locations inside the sole COVID-19 patient care center in Zabol, Iran, for screening SARS-CoV-2 RNA from March to May 2021. Locations included the ICU, COVID-19 wards (CWs) rooms, corridors, nearby nurses' stations, and toilets. We identified the SARS-CoV-2 RNA in breathing zone of CW, in room air, with the positivity rate of 2.5% at a concentration of 17 × 103 virus genome copies/m3 air. It also investigates the relationship between local climate conditions [i.e., temperature and relative humidity] and COVID-19 transmission with the evolution of daily official data on the number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Current data explained that the difference of temperature and humidity may affect the behavior of virus along with other factors, i.e., population density, individual viral shedding, and infectious dose of SARS-CoV-2 (both indoor and outdoor). Our data support the potential SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission indoors suggesting the specific safety assessment of building to improve ventilation solutions besides proper using face masks and extensive public health interventions.

Relationship between the status of occupational health management and job satisfaction among farmers: A health promotion approach.

BACKGROUND: Job satisfaction is one of the most important issues related to human resources in the organization which can reduce organizational productivity. In this regard, occupational health is an important science related to the health of the workforce in any organization, paying attention to it will help health promotion. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between the status of occupational health management and job satisfaction among farmers with a health promotion approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2020. The number of 209 farmers from all villages of Zabol was included by census method. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire that consisting of three sections of demographic information, occupational safety and health status, and standard job satisfaction questionnaire. At first, the validity and reliability of the questionnaire were evaluated. In addition, 5-10 staff working in Agricultural Jihad Organization were asked about the content, clarity, and simplicity of the questionnaire terms. Content validity index and content validity ratio indexes were calculated as 0.68 and 0.83 for occupational health management and 0.69 and 0.83 for job satisfaction questionnaires, respectively. Instrument reliability was also assessed using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was 0.872. Finally, after verifying the validity and reliability of the instrument, a questionnaire was used to collect the research data. Shapiro-Wilk, Wilcoxon, and Spearman correlation tests were used to analyze the findings. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software version 19. Armonk; NY, USA: IBM Corp. RESULTS: The results of the study indicate that occupational health management was at a moderate to a high level (3.701) and job satisfaction (3.381) was at a moderate to a high level. The standard regression coefficient between occupational health management and job satisfaction was obtained as 0.571. With a confidence of 95%, it can be stated that occupational health management in Zabol city under the supervision of jihad-e-agriculture organization has a significant impact on farmers' job satisfaction. In addition, the research findings confirmed a positive and significant relationship between occupational health management and job satisfaction of employed farmers and showed that the implementation of occupational safety and health programs in the jihad-e-agriculture organization can affect the job satisfaction of farmers. CONCLUSION: According to the evaluation of research findings, job satisfaction and occupational health management in the Agricultural Jihad Organization are relatively favorable among farmers in Zabol city. It was argued that there is a relationship between occupational health management and job satisfaction, that the implementation of programs related to occupational safety and health management system such as Health and Safety Executive will promote health.

Training needs assessment of intensive care nurses in Zabol University of Medical Sciences' Hospitals.

BACKGROUND: The improvement of the knowledge, skill, and attitude of nurses working at the intensive care unit (ICU) through implementing training need assessment and holding continuous in-service training courses are of main requisites for providing better health services to the community. Based on this, in the present work, we are looking for the identification and prioritization of the training need of intensive care nurses in the Zabol University of Medical Sciences' hospitals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: As a cross-sectional, descriptive study, including two phases of identification and prioritization of training needs of ICU nurses, it was conducted by a close-ended researcher-made questionnaire for collecting the data on training needs from the viewpoint nursing officials, supervisors, and head nurses of the ICU wards in the first phase and a multiple-choice scientific test plus a checklist for measuring the knowledge and skill of the nurses in the ICU in the second phase. In both phases, census method was used for collecting the data. The validity and reliability of data-gathering tools, mentioned above, were tested and verified before gathering data. Data were analyzed with the descriptive statistics. RESULTS: The results indicated that ventilator setting according to arterial blood gas sampling and interpretation (77.81), cardiac monitoring, detecting dysrhythmia and taking immediate intervention (73.04), ventilator setting according to patient's respiratory status (68.61), airway management, oxygenation and intubation (64.39), and adults cardiopulmonary resuscitation (61.77) were the high-priority training needs of the nurses successively. CONCLUSION: To improve the quality of training programs and upgrading the knowledge, skill, and attitude of nurses working at ICU, the significance and the weight of each training titles should be determined according to the standards and the continuous in-service training plan along with nurses' training needs and duties.

Investigation of Relationship between Occupational Stress and Cardiovascular Risk Factors among Nurses.

BACKGROUND: One of the major causes of various work-related health problems among nurses is occupational stress. Hence, the main purpose of the present research was to find association between occupational stress of nurses and risk factors of cardiovascular disease. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the Osipow job stress questionnaire was employed to assess the occupational stress among the 250 nurses in Emam Khomeini hospital of Tehran in 2018. Based on stress score for participants, subjects divided into two groups: Scoring of group one was 60-179 (mild and average stress) and group two between 180 and 300 (average to acute and acute stress). Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were recorded for subjects after 10hrs fasting. Then the blood samples were collected to measure cholesterol, triglyceride and glucose levels. For determining the association between education level, job experience and study groups, the Chi-square test and for comparing job stress between two groups of study the Mann-Whitney U test was used. RESULTS: Subjects with job stress in group one was 70(28%) and group two was 180(72%). The association between level of education and two study groups was not significant (P=0.129) while between job experience and two study groups was significant (P=0.004). Mean of Blood glucose levels for group I (98.0± 37.5), was higher than group II (82.5±12.0) and statistically significant (P=0.001). No significant difference was found between two groups of study for other parameters. CONCLUSION: High level of work-related stress among subjects affected the values related to blood glucose level, but no significant relationship was found between other risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and occupational stress among nurses.

Investigation of the relationship between the safety climate and occupational fatigue among the nurses of educational hospitals in Zabol.

INTRODUCTION: Some working and organizational conditions, such as psychological stress and shift work, are factors that threaten the health of staff working in health centers. These factors can cause fatigue in a long time. Fatigue reduces the ability to process information and decrease to respond to hazardous conditions and will affect the safety of the environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between safety climate and occupational fatigue in nurses working in Zabol city. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 143 nurses working in educational hospitals of Zabol in 2019. The proportional sampling method was used, and the Swedish Occupational Fatigue Questionnaire and the Nurses Safety Questionnaire were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using independent t-test, analysis of variance, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and SPSS-21 software. RESULTS: In the present study, 57.3% were women and 42.7% were men. The mean score of occupational fatigue was 85.09 ± 41.49, and the mean score of safety climate was 67.15 ± 12.73. There is a significant inverse relationship between occupational fatigue and safety climate. The comparison of safety climate and its subscales between occupational and demographic variables showed that the score of male supervisors' attitude was 01.36 ± 2.41 while the score of female supervisors' attitude was 8.88 ± 2.61, and this difference was significant. Furthermore, cumulative burnout, the attitude of supervisors, and the safety climate were significantly different between different educational levels. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that there is a relationship between occupational fatigue and safety climate. Issues related to safety and risk factors in hospitals due to the high risk of disease outbreak and mortality, in addition to being economical, are important in terms of the human aspect as well. In addition, the activity of nursing staff is more important compared to other groups because of providing health care and communicating with patients; thus, more education about the safety climate of the workplace environment in hospitals can reduce nurses' fatigue.

Shift working disorders among nurses of Tehran hospital and its related factors in 2016.

INTRODUCTION: Many adverse effects occur among the nurses due to shift work Hence, the present study aimed to determine the prevalence of shift work-related disorders and its related factor among the nurses at Tehran University Subsidiary Hospital, Iran, and to find solutions for managing the relevant health problems. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the Survey of Shift workers (SOS) questionnaire and the Personal Information Form were used to collect data related to demographics and working conditions of 1259 randomly selected nurses working at Tehran University Subsidiary Hospital as statistical population. RESULTS: According to the results, psychological disorders (95%), digestive problems (85%) and social problems (80%) were the most frequent problems among the subjects. Additionally, the satisfaction rate was higher among the volunteer nurses compared to nurses who were forced to do shift work (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The nurses volunteered for shift work had higher satisfaction rate compared to nurses forced to shift work system; moreover, they had more job satisfaction and less shift work-related complaints. Therefore, it is important to select the nurses who are volunteer for shift work system. In addition, the shift work schedule in hospitals should be set based on workload and requirements because the shift schedule can adversely influence the social and family issues of the nurses, as well as their sleep quality and body biological process.

Using Image Processing in the Proposed Drowsiness Detection System Design.

BACKGROUND: Drowsiness is one of the underlying causes of driving accidents, which contribute, to many road fatalities annually. Although numerous methods have been developed to detect the level of drowsiness, techniques based on image processing are quicker and more accurate in comparison with the other methods. The aim of this study was to use image-processing techniques to detect the levels of drowsiness in a driving simulator. METHODS: This study was conducted on five suburban drivers using a driving simulator based on virtual reality laboratory of Khaje-Nasir Toosi University of Technology in 2015 Tehran, Iran. The facial expressions, as well as location of the eyes, were detected by Violla-Jones algorithm. Criteria for detecting drivers' levels of drowsiness by eyes tracking included eye blink duration blink frequency and PERCLOS that was used to confirm the results. RESULTS: Eye closure duration and blink frequency have a direct ratio of drivers' levels of drowsiness. The mean of squares of errors for data trained by the network and data into the network for testing, were 0.0623 and 0.0700, respectively. Meanwhile, the percentage of accuracy of detecting system was 93. CONCLUSION: The results showed several dynamic changes of the eyes during the periods of drowsiness. The present study proposes a fast and accurate method for detecting the levels of drivers' drowsiness by considering the dynamic changes of the eyes.

Data for the prevalence of nurses׳ burnout in Iran (a meta-analysis dataset).

The present dataset was carried out using meta-analysis method towards investigation of the prevalence of nurses׳ burnout in Iran. To this end, the keywords were searched in the Iranian databases such as Medlib, SID, Iranmedex, Magiran or even some international databases such as Cochrane, Science-Direct, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. The data were analysed using the STATA Software Version 12. In ten articles with a sample size of 1758 subjects, an average age of 30.73 (54%) and the confidence interval of 43-64, the prevalence of burnout was reported. The obtained data indicated that Fars and Zanjan Provinces had the highest and lowest rates of burnout (72% and 26%, respectively). According to the acquired data, the total prevalence of burnout among men and women measured 46% and 65%, respectively. Given the high prevalence of burnout among the Iranian nurses in this dataset and the importance of nursing in public health which requires highly motivated and committed nurses with high job satisfaction, it is recommended that the intensity of burnout be reduced through supervising the nurses׳ professional performance, supporting, paying attention to their problems, following up and providing the necessary strategies to improve their environmental, economic, and personal conditions.

Study on attitudes of students of Islamic Azad University Tehran Medical Branch toward food safety, 2016.

BACKGROUND: Given the importance of high-quality healthy food for humans, contamination control is the most important concern for healthy staff. AIM: To determine the attitudes of students at Islamic Azad University (Tehran Medical Branch) toward food safety. METHODS: This cross-sectional and analytic-descriptive study was conducted on 326 students of Azad University of Medical Sciences in 2016. A self-made questionnaire consisting of 40 questions was used. The reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed using internal consistency method (Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.80). After collecting data, we use descriptive statistical indexes (mean and standard deviation) among demographic variables and the level of knowledge to describe and analyze the data. The participants' attitudes and operation are measured by Spearman tests, and the analytical results are given using SPSS version 20. RESULTS: According to the findings, 55.3, 30 and 14.7 percent of students had high, moderate and low attitude scores toward food safety, respectively. In addition, male and female students had equal attitudes toward food safety, and no significant relationship between sex and attitude was observed a significant difference (p>0.05), but between educational levels (p=0.008) and ages (p=0.001) of students significance was a positive correlation. CONCLUSIONS: Due to the low attitudes score of about half of the students of Islamic Azad University Tehran Medical Branch toward food safety, it can be claimed, food safety training in this community is required.