• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.205-212
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• 2019

Background: Workforce health is one of the primary and most challenging issues, particularly in industrialized countries. This article aims at modeling the major factors affecting accidents in the workplace, including general health, work-family conflict, effort-reward imbalance, and internal and external locus of control. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in Esfahan Steel Company in Iran. A total of 450 participants were divided into two groups-control and case-and the questionnaires were distributed among them. Data were collected through a 7-part questionnaire. Finally, the results were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Amos software. Results: All the studied variables had a significant relationship with the accident proneness. In the case group, general health with a coefficient of -0.37, worke-family conflict with 0.10, effort-reward imbalance with 0.10, internal locus of control with -0.07, and external locus of control with 0.40 had a direct effect on occupational stress. Occupational stress also had a positive direct effect on accident proneness with a coefficient of 0.47. In addition, fitness indices of control group showed general health (-0.35), worke-family conflict (0.36), effort-reward imbalance (0.13), internal locus of control (-0.15), and external locus of control (0.12) have a direct effect on occupational stress. Besides, occupational stress with a coefficient of 0.09 had a direct effect on accident proneness. Conclusion: It can be concluded that although previous studies and the present study showed the effect of stress on accident and accident proneness, some hidden and external factors such as work-family conflict, effort-reward imbalance, and external locus of control that affect stress should also be considered. It helps industries face less occupational stress and, consequently, less occurrence rates of accidents.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.3-20
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• 2019

This review aimed to identify risk factors for occupational accidents and illnesses among young workers in the Nordic countries and to attain knowledge on specific vulnerable groups within the young working force that may need special attention. We conducted a systematic review from 1994 to 2014 using five online databases. Of the 12,528 retrieved articles, 54 met the review criteria and were quality assessed, in which data were extracted focusing on identifying occupational safety, health risk factors, and vulnerable groups among the young workers. The review shows that mechanical factors such as heavy lifting, psychosocial factors such as low control over work pace, and organizational factors such as safety climate are all associated with increased injury risk for young Nordic workers. Results show that exposures to chemical substances were associated with skin reactions, e.g., hand eczema. Heavy lifting and awkward postures were risk factors for low back pain, and high job demands were risk factors for mental health outcomes. The review identified young unskilled workers including school drop-out workers as particularly vulnerable groups when it comes to occupational accidents. In addition, apprentices and young skilled workers were found to be vulnerable to work-related illnesses. It is essential to avoid stereotyping young Nordic workers into one group using only age as a factor, as young workers are a heterogeneous group and their vulnerabilities to occupational safety and health risks are contextual. Politicians, researchers, and practitioners should account for this complexity in the education, training and organization of work, and workplace health and safety culture.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.38-49
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• 2021

Objectives: This study was conducted to analyze the impact of safety/health managers' experience of trauma case on their post traumatic stress disorder and the mediation effects of job stress and the moderated mediation effects of social support. Method: Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from 241 workplace safety/health managers with experience in trauma case. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS(IBM. Ver.26.0) and verified through SPSS PROCESS Macro (Ver. 3.4). Results: The trauma case experience and the job stress, which is a mediation variable, had a statistically significant positive effect on post-traumatic stress disorder, and the job stress had a positive mediation effect in the relationship between the trauma case experience and post-traumatic stress disorder. Social support had a statistically significant negative moderation effect in the relationship between the trauma case experience and job stress; social support had a moderated mediation effect on the indirect effect of a job stress on the post-traumatic effect through a trauma case experience. Conclusion: The above findings suggest that work-related job stress management is important in order to reduce safety/health managers' post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the experience of trauma case, and that social support is essential to reduce the job stress, which can later be used as a basis for further studies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.364-375
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• 2020

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to suggest a direction for consumer-oriented curriculum development by analyzing the priorities of subjects and their preference for educational methods. Methods: The participants included 773 management supervisors and education practitioners in the workplace, and a survey was conducted from April 17 to August 30, 2019. Frequency analysis, t-test, Borich's Needs Analysis, and Locus for Focus Model analysis were performed using Microsoft Excel 2019 and IBM SPSS 21.0. Results: The highest perceived priorities for education subjects were as follows: ① 'CPR and First Aid Practice' and 'Occupational Disaster Prevention and First Aid Basics' in the manufacturing industry; and ② 'Emotional Labor and Job Stress Prevention', 'Occupational Disaster Prevention and First Aid basics, and 'Musculoskeletal Disorder Prevention' in the service industry. 'Collective education' was the most preferred method of education. 'School-type' was preferred for the seating arrangement, and the proper number of trainees was considered to be about 30. Respondents said the contents of the education was a top priority when they applied for education, and curriculum and appropriate textbooks should be considered in calculating the cost of education. Conclusions: Practical subjects and subjects related to major hazards by industry were required for management supervisor education. It was proposed in this study that the contents and operating methods of education be changed so that workers can easily comprehend essential subjects such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act. In conclusion, it is necessary to design the curriculum and apply educational methods suitable for each subject's characteristics in consideration of the priorities for subjects reflected in the needs of trainees.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.121-138
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• 2021

In the rapidly changing business environment, the intention to start a new business is strengthening. In this study, in order to confirm the effect on the entrepreneurial intention, the relationship and the effect among technical capability, and job satisfaction, and entrepreneurship, which are the second order factor consisting of risk taking, desire for achievement, and innovativeness, on entrepreneurial intention were analyzed to identify the effect of business intentions from the perspective of knowledge management.. To this end, the proposed research model was statistically verified using the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Model. Under analysis, survey data were collected online for 280 employees currently in the workplace, and the research model was empirically analyzed through the structural equation model. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that all the suggested variables had a significant effect on the entrepreneurial intention, and that job satisfaction had a negative moderating effect on entrepreneurial intention by interacting with entrepreneurship. The results of this study are expected to provide practical and theoretical implications from a knowledge management perspective.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.24 no.6_2
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• pp.899-908
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• 2021

It is expected that the global market for vessel repair and remodeling will grow up to the scale of about 25 billion dollars by 2023. Korea's shipbuilding industry is leading the world with its international competitiveness in design and production technology. The actual status of vessel repair industry, however, is poor as there are only two or three companies for vessel repair that can deal with large vessels in the area of Gyeongnam. The reason is that civil complaints are filed severely about environmental problems and environment-related regulations are so strict that it is fairly hard to get governmental approval for the operation of a vessel repair workplace. Domestic vessel repair companies mainly target small- and medium-sized vessels. There are only few workplaces that can carry out regular examination or repair work on large vessels such as LNG vessels, and due to the high price of vessel repair, most of the domestic repair work on large vessels including LNG vessels tends to be snatched by markets in Southeast Asia or China. Despite the tremendous domestic demand of Korea that has established the world's first shipbuilding industry and world's sixth biggest harbor infrastructure, its vessel repair industry can be said to be in very poor condition. In order to vitalize vessel repair industry, this study is aimed to analyze the environmental influence of vessel repair workplaces in Gyeongnam where vessel repair companies are concentrated and suggest standard processes by analyzing vessel repair processes precisely.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.304-316
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• 2022

Background: As prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in healthcare settings has become a critical component in its effective management, COVID-19 specific infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines were developed and implemented by numerous countries. Although largely based on the current evidence-base, guidelines show much heterogeneity, as they are influenced by respective health system capacities, epidemiological risk, and socioeconomic status. This study aims to analyze the variations and concurrences of these guidelines to draw policy implications for COVID-19 response and future guidelines development. Methods: The contents of the COVID-19 IPC guidelines were analyzed using the categories and codes developed based on "World Health Organization guidelines on core components." Data analysis involved reviewing, appraising and synthesizing data from guidelines, which were then arranged into categories and codes. Selection of countries was based on the country income level, availability of COVID-19 specific IPC guideline developed at a national or district level. Results: The guidelines particularly agreed on IPC measures regarding application of standard precautions and providing information to patients and visitors, monitoring and audit of IPC activities and staff illnesses, and management of built environment/equipments. The guidelines showed considerable differences in certain components, such as workplace safety measures and criteria for discontinuation of precautions. Several guidelines also contained unique features which enabled a more systematic response to COVID-19. Conclusion: The guidelines generally complied with the current evidence-based COVID-19 management but also revealed variances stemming from differences in local health system capacity. Several unique features should be considered for benchmark in future guidelines development.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.522-529
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• 2021

Background: Burnout syndrome (BOS) is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. This study aims to create the Korean version burnout syndrome scale (KBOSS) that conforms to WHO's definition of BOS and present the cut-off points for screening. Methods: We developed the KBOSS based on WHO's definition of BOS. An online survey was conducted through a specialized online research company. We recruited 444 workers for this research. The validity of the KBOSS was assessed using factor analysis and Pearson's correlation. The KBOSS reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The cut-off points for each of the three dimensions were derived using the upper quartile score. Results: The validity and reliability of the KBOSS were good. Regarding reliability, the scale's overall Cronbach's alpha was 0.813. Cronbach's alpha of each three-dimension was as follows: exhaustion, 0.916; cynicism, 0.865; and professional inefficacy, 0.819. The cut-off points of BOS three dimensions are exhaustion S 21; cynicism S 18; and inefficacy S 15. Conclusion: The developed questionnaire (KBOSS) can be a useful tool for screening of BOS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2022.05a
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• pp.158-160
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• 2022

Many office workers spend a lot of time performing repetitive office tasks in inefficient ways. We developed a user-friendly chatbot system based on Kakaotalk to automate repetitive tasks and used the chatbot in the real workplace. In the process of operating the chatbot, if several people use the chatbot at the same time, the server was down or could not respond. To address these issues, we performed code migration of programs used by chatbot back-end servers and tried several ways to improve server performance such as database redesign and load balancing. To determine how much each method affects performance improvement, we measured total request per second and average latency. After that, we proposed ways to improve the problems of using the chatbot in the work environment.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.206-214
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• 2023

Objectives: To determine the effect of the various type and number of shift work on sociopsychological stress in the university hospital nurses in Seoul, South Korea. Methods: Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire that included general characteristics, the type and number of shift work in the past 4 weeks and the an sociopsychological stress based on PWI-SF. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to analyze the effect of shift work by types on sociopsychological stress of university hospital nurses using SAS 9.4 and it adjusted general characteristics by the additional models. Results: When the number of night shift work 3 or 4 compared to 0, sociopsychological stress was significantly high(OR=2.16, 95% CI=1.29-3.65). When 5 or more, it was higher(OR=2.39, 95% CI=1.55-3.72). Two continuous night shift work compared to 0 increased sociopsychological stress(OR=2.37, 95% CI=1.49-3.81) and 3 or more even more(OR=2.70, 95% CI=1.72-4.27). If the shift work type changes 14 or 15 times compare to below 11, sociopsychological stress is increased and even higher when 15 or more times but it's not significant after adjusting for covariates. Conclusions: It suggests that workplace with nurse expose to shift work should be on lookout for more than three night shift work, more than two continuous night shift work and more than 14 shift work change which can lead to burnout, absenteeism, depression and decreased productivity.