• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.4
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• pp.48-57
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of the role and function of some industrial nurses and to characterize the factors affecting the performance of their activities. Thus the results could be used to suggest the direction in the performance of industrials nurses' activities effectively. During a period from January 10 to March 31, 1994, the data were collected from 87 industrial nurses, who were working as health managers in the plants, in Ulsan city and the vicinity in Kyungnam province, using a structured questionnaire. The results were as follows : 1. The general characteristics of industrial nurses in this study were 82.8% being 30 years old or less, 60.9%, being not married, and 93.1% having eduction levels above junior college. 2. With respect to general work conditions, 94.3% were working in a separate room provided for health care division, 40.2% working under the safety and health department, and 98.9% working as common-level staffs. And 60.9% were working less than 44 hours a week, 70.1% had work experiences less than 5 years, and 50.6% had annual incomes ranging 10 to 14 million wons. 3. As work conditions related to health care activities, 49.4% performed the activities not related to health care as always or occasionally, and 87.4% answered that occupational physicians were appointed in their plant and among them, however, only 6.9% worked on full-time basis and 52.8% perform little activities as occupational physicians. For a decision related to health care activity, 69.0% discussed the problems with the supervisors, and 19.5% made decisions by themselves. 4. As for attitude and perception to their activities as health managers, 66.7% moderately recognized the importance of health manager in the workplace, with 63.2% being satisfied their wages and treatment from the company, 57.5% being satisfied with their job positions and 51.7% having positive attitudes as being health managers. 5. The degree of performance at least in one of health related activities were very high in activities such as general medical care(100%), general health examination(98.0%) and specific health examination(100%), and relatively high in health education(72%), new employee health examination(60.9%), document handling(79.3%) and activity for work environment(70.1%). However, the performance rate was very low in preparing protective equipment (20.8%). 6. The levels of activities related to health care were significantly high when making decisions by themselves, when occupational physicians not being full-time, and when satisfying their job positions, and, on the other hand, significantly decreased as work hours increased. 7. In addition to some kinds of periodic education asked by all of the nurses, 89.7% wanted a specialized licensing system for industrial nurse, and 97.4% wanted to apply for the license test. As a conclusion, it is suggested that industrial nurses should be given more authority and placed in more self-controlled system to perform health care and other activities more efficiently, and the role and function of the occupational physician should be clearly distinguished from that of the industrial nurse as a health manager to avoid an unnecessary overlapping.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.207-208
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• 2000

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.205-206
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• 2000

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.5607-5611
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• 2015

Thousands of people die each year from cancer due to occupational causes. To reduce cancer in workers, preventive strategies should be used in the high-risk workplace. The effective prevention of occupational cancer requires knowledge of carcinogen agents. Like other areas of healthcare industry, occupational health has been affected by information technology solutions to improve prevention, early detection, treatment and finally the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the healthcare system. Information technology solutions are thus an important issue in the healthcare field. Information about occupational cancer in information systems is important for policy makers, managers, physicians, patients and researchers; because examples that include high quality data about occupational cancer patients and occupational cancer causes are able to determine the worker groups which require special attention. As a result exposed workers who are vulnerable can undergo screening and be considered for preventive interventions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.110-116
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• 2012

Establishing a causal relationship between factors at work and disease is difficult for occupational physicians and researchers. This paper seeks to provide arguments for the judgement of evidence of causality in observational studies that relate work factors to disease. I derived criteria for the judgement of evidence of causality from the following sources: the criteria list of Hill, the approach by Rothman, the methods used by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and methods used by epidemiologists. The criteria are applied to two cases of putative occupational diseases; breast cancer caused by shift work and aerotoxic syndrome. Only three of the Hill criteria can be applied to an actual study. Rothman stresses the importance of confounding and alternative explanations than the putative cause. IARC closely follows Hill, but they also incorporate other than epidemiological evidence. Applied to shift work and breast cancer, these results have found moderate evidence for a causal relationship, but applied to the aerotoxic syndrome, there is an absence of evidence of causality. There are no ready to use algorithms for judgement of evidence of causality. Criteria from different sources lead to similar results and can make a conclusion of causality more or less likely.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.212-220
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• 2011

Purpose: This study was to investigate the prevalence & types of workplace violence toward nurses in hospitals, and to understand nurse's coping response, cause of violence and prevention strategy. Methods: The data were collected from 254 nurses working in 9 hospitals in Jeju Province by the self-report from June to August 2010. Results: The respondents experienced unpleasant or insulting words (89.8%), verbal threat (38.2%), physical threat (67.7%), physical injury (32.7%), severe physical injury (2.8%), and sexual harassment (26.4%) during the last one year. The frequent offenders were patients, patients' family and physicians in order. The causes of violence which nurses perceived were personality of offenders (76.4%), lack of assessment of aggressive patients or care givers (42.1%), and lack of explanation to patients or caregivers (33.5%). They reported that coping strategies for workplace violence were 'established reporting system (63.4%)', 'building a cooperative circumstances within team members (58.3%)', and 'formulation of hospital policies for violence prevention and coping (54.3%)'. Conclusion: These findings showed nurses are at considerable risk for workplace violence, and they experience various types of violence from patients, caregivers, and physicians. We suggest that hospitals formulate appropriate policies, guidelines and programs to prevent and cope with workplace violence in hospitals.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.490-495
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• 2021

Introduction: The risk of experiencing psychiatric symptoms related to the COVID-19 pandemic is high among healthcare workers whose occupations are in public health, emergency medicine, and intensive or critical care. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study aimed to assess the prevalence of fear of COVID-19 among 411 frontline Egyptian physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic; identify determinants and predictors for fear of COVID-19; determine the impact of fear of COVID-19 on job satisfaction; and detect the impact of fear of COVID-19 on turnover intention. Three standardized scales (fear of COVID-19, job satisfaction, and turnover intention scores) were used for data collection via online Google Form. Results: Regarding fear relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, 16.5% of the study subjects were classified as experiencing a severe fear level, while 78.1% experienced a moderate degree. A significant association between the level of fear relating to COVID-19 and the work department. The highest degree of fear is in a general-educational-university facility. Regarding job satisfaction, 42% of those having a severe level of fear are dissatisfied. Fear of COVID-19 is negatively associated with job satisfaction while positively significant correlated with turnover scores, a positive significant predictor of turnover intention. Job satisfaction is negatively associated with turnover intention; a negative significant predictor of turnover intention. Conclusions: Frontline Egyptian physicians reported higher levels of fear relating to the COVID-19 pandemic (moderate to severe). Increased fear levels relating to COVID-19 have a relationship with lower levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of job turnover.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.146-150
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• 2015

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a broad field of professional practice, which involves specialists from different disciplines including but not limited to engineers, occupational health physicians, physical and biological scientists, economists, and statisticians. The preventive systems required to ensure workers are protected from injuries and illnesses dwell heavily on engineers; however, the extent to which the engineer can go regarding planning and implementing preventive measures is dependent on specific legal requirements, leadership commitment from the company, organization, and nation. The objective of this paper is to identify the areas of opportunities for improvements in OHS management in Ghana with regard to the nation's legal requirements, commitment of the Ghana government, and Ghanaian leadership as well as appropriate structuring of Ghanaian institutions responsible for monitoring and managing OHS in Ghana. This paper identified Ghana's fragmented legal requirements concerning OHS, which are under different jurisdictions with unclear responsibilities and accountabilities. The paper also highlights the training needs of Ghanaian academic institutions regarding OHS. Among other recommendations made including structuring of Ghanaian institutions to manage OHS in line with the ILO-OSH 2001, this paper aligns the recommendations with the articles and elements of International Labour Organization convention number 155 and OHSAS 18001 elements.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2012

Zoonoses represent a public health risk recently pointed out by the spreading of previously unknown human infectious diseases emerging from animal reservoirs such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and avian influenza caused by H5N1-virus. These outbreaks have shown that animal breeding activities can pose a significant public health risk. Until now, the risk of zoonoses has probably been underestimated, particularly in occupational settings. The emergence or re-emergence of bacterial (Mycobacterium bovis and Brucella spp) or viral (hepatitis E virus) infections shows that zoonoses should be considered as emerging risks in agricultural and animal breeding and should be addressed by specific preventive interventions. Close cooperation and interaction between veterinarians, occupational health physicians and public health operators is necessary, for a worldwide strategy to expand interdisciplinary collaborations and communications in all aspects of health care for humans, animals and the environment. This is what the One Health Approach was intended to be.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 2020

Background: The aim of this study is to illustrate the historical role of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) congresses as an arena where national and international occupational medicine can dialogue and as the first example of scientific transferability of the research and prevention results that have had such an impact on global public health. Methods: We used the ICOH Heritage Repository, in which ICOH congress proceedings (from the first congress in Milan in 1906 to the last congress, held in Dublin in 2018), are organised in an orderly way, updated and easily accessible according to open access logic. Results: We describe studies by three physicians who submitted significant scientific work to ICOH congresses, one on the battle against ancylostomiasis (Volante, 1906), the second (Quarelli, 1928) on carbon disulphide poisoning, and the third (Viola, 1969) on the carcinogenicity of vinyl chloride monomer. Priority is given to Italian cases, on account of the authors' obvious familiarity with the issues. Conclusion: The visibility offered in ICOH conferences and their published proceedings has boosted the international spread of their findings, contributing to the scientific transferability of the research results and influencing the development of policies and prevention interventions that have had a great impact on global public health.