• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.91-109
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• 2016

This study was mainly aimed to investigate on the perceptions of occupational suitability for speakers who stutter and the associated factors. 90 college students who do not stutter participated in this study and asked to hear one of three audio recordings(i.e., fluent version, mildly-stuttered version, and severely-stuttered version) of a male speaker who stuttered. Then, the participants were asked to rate the speaker's communicative functioning, personal attributes, and suitability for 31 occupations, along with perceptions of the occupations' speaking demands and educational requirements. Results show that speakers who stuttered (i.e., mildly-stuttered and severely-stuttered version) received lower suitability ratings for high speaking demand occupations than for low speaking demand occupations. In addition, it has been shown that perceived speaking demand strongly affected occupational suitability ratings at both levels of stuttering severity. However, it has been shown that occupational suitability ratings were not associated with ratings of the speaker's personal attributes and perceived educational requirements. From these findings it can be argued that adults who stutter may face occupational stereotyping and/or role entrapment in work settings.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.108-115
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of dental hygienist images and career advice among high school teachers. A self-reported questionnaire was administered to 212 high school teachers in Gwangju, South Korea. The questionnaire contained subject's general characteristics, images of dental hygienists, and career advice. We performed an independent t-test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, Pearson's correlation coefficient, multiple regression analysis, and logistic regression analysis using the IBM SPSS ver. 21.0 software. Using a five-point scale, the average of all the dental hygienist images was 3.50, with personal images receiving the most positive rating at 3.83 and social images receiving the least positive rating at 2.86. The images of dental hygienists were significantly more positive in instances where the subjects recognized the dental hygienist or received treatment within one year. There were positive correlations among different kinds of images. Through multiple regression analysis, occupational images were associated with business and social images. Business images were associated with occupational and personal images. Personal images were associated with business images, especially in cases where the subjects recognized the dental hygienist. Social images were associated with occupational images, especially in cases where subjects received treatment within one year. Through logistic regression analysis, career advice was associated with social and occupational images. Therefore, our study provides suggestions on how to enhance positive recognition of social images of dental hygienists.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2013

The aim of this study is to analyze affecting factor on the job finding stress of university students majoring occupational therapy. We collected data for 7days from 12 to 19 July, 2012. This study was surveyed 270 university students majoring occupational therapy was located in the Pusan and South Kyungnam region. It was found that mean score of the job find stress was $2.12{\pm}0.57$. There was statistically significant difference in the physical symptom, depression, anxiety and sub-domain on the job finding stress by gender, age, the economic status, region of birth, the state of employment, employment determinants, job finding stress relief, advice for job finding(p<0.05). From the multiple regression analysis, it was found that affecting factor on the job finding stress was personal characteristics, job related characteristics, stress relief characteristics, physical symptom, depression, anxiety which was statistically significant difference(p<0.05). As a result, we could know that they must relieve the physical symptom, depression and anxiety for lowering job finding stress of university student majoring occupational student.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 2022

Background: This study aims to derive the characteristics of each work type for industrial radiography based on empirical evidence through expert advice and a survey of radiation workers of various types of industrial radiography. Materials and Methods: According to a Korean report, work types of industrial radiography are classified into indoor tests, underground pipe tests, tests in a shielded room (radiographic testing [RT] room test), outdoor field tests, and outdoor large structure tests. For each work type, exposure geometry and radiation sources were mainly identified through the expert advice and workers' survey as reliable empirical evidence. Results and Discussion: The expert advice and survey results were consistent as the proportion of the work types were high in the order of RT room test, outdoor large structure test, underground pipe test, outdoor field test, and indoor test. The outdoor large structure test is the highest exposure risk work type in the industrial radiography. In most types of industrial radiography, radiation workers generally used ¹⁹²Ir as the main source. In the results of the survey, the portion of sources was high in the order of ¹⁹²Ir, X-ray generator, ⁶⁰Co, and ⁷⁵Se. As the exposure geometry, the antero-posterior geometry is dominant, and the rotational and isotropic geometry should be also considered with the work type. Conclusion: In this study, through expert advice and a survey, the external exposure characteristics for each work type of industrial radiography workers were derived. This information will be used in the reconstruction of organ dose for health effects assessment of Korean radiation workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.327-328
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• 2017

Despite provision of drinking water as the most common method of occupational heat stress prevention, there remains confusion in hydration messaging to workers. During work site interactions in a hot and humid climate, workers commonly report being informed to consume tepid fluids to accelerate rehydration. When questioned on the evidence supporting such advice, workers typically cite that fluid absorption is delayed by ingestion of chilled beverages. Presumably, delayed absorption would be a product of fluid delivery from the gut to the intestines, otherwise known as gastric emptying. Regulation of gastric emptying is multifactorial, with gastric volume and beverage energy density the primary factors. If gastric emptying is temperature dependent, the impact of cooling is modest in both magnitude and duration (${\leq}5$ minutes) due to the warming of fluids upon ingestion, particularly where workers have elevated core temperature. Given that chilled beverages are most preferred by workers, and result in greater consumption than warm fluids during and following physical activity, the resultant increased consumption of chilled fluids would promote gastric emptying through superior gastric volume. Hence, advising workers to avoid cool/cold fluids during rehydration appears to be a misinterpretation of the research. More appropriate messaging to workers would include the thermal benefits of cool/cold fluid consumption in hot and humid conditions, thereby promoting autonomy to trial chilled beverages and determine personal preference. In doing so, temperature-based palatability would be maximized and increase the likelihood of workers maintaining or restoring hydration status during and after their work shift.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.265-271
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• 2019

Objectives: The Samsung Ombudsperson Commission was launched as an independent third-party institution following an agreement among Samsung Electronics, Supporters for Health and Right of People in Semiconductor Industry (Banolim in Korean, an independent NGO), and the Family Compensation Committee, in accordance with the industry accident prevention measure required by the settlement committee to address the issues related to employees who allegedly died from leukemia and other diseases as a result of working at Samsung's semiconductor production facilities. Methods: The Commission has carried out a comprehensive range of activities to review and evaluate the status of the company's occupational accidents management system, as well as occupational safety and health risk management within its facilities. Results: Based on the results of this review, termed a comprehensive diagnosis, the Commission presented action plans for improvement to strengthen the company's existing safety and health management system and to effectively address uncertain risks in this area going forward. Conclusions: The Commission will monitor the execution of the suggested tasks and provide advice and guidance to ensure that Samsung's semiconductor and liquid crystal display production lines are safer.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.65-76
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• 2019

This study aimed to primarily examine perceptions about occupational suitability made by vocational counselors for adults who stutter and associated factors. A total of 69 vocational counsellors (23 per condition) took part in this study and were randomly assigned to recordings related to three different speech conditions (fluent, less-severe stuttering, and severe stuttering versions). The participants were asked to listen to one of the three recordings and rate the speaker's communicative functioning, personal attributes, and suitability for 31 occupations, along with perceptions of the speaking demands and educational requirements of the occupations. Regarding the two stuttering conditions, it was found that suitability ratings were lower for occupations with a high speaking demand than those with a low speaking demand. In addition, the most significant factor associated with occupational suitability ratings was perceived speaking demands, followed by perceived educational requirements, and then by ratings of the speaker's personal attributes. These findings suggest that adults who stutter may face role entrapment (or occupational stereotyping) in workplace settings.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.216-221
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• 2014

Background: Mental health complaints are quite common in health care employees and can have adverse effects on work functioning. The aim of this study was to evaluate an e-mental health (EMH) approach to workers' health surveillance (WHS) for nurses and allied health professionals. Using the waiting-list group of a previous randomized controlled trial with high dropout and low compliance to the intervention, we studied the pre- and posteffects of the EMH approach in a larger group of participants. Methods: We applied a pretest-posttest study design. The WHS consisted of online screening on impaired work functioning and mental health followed by online automatically generated personalized feedback, online tailored advice, and access to self-help EMH interventions. The effects on work functioning, stress, and work-related fatigue after 3 months were analyzed using paired t tests and effect sizes. Results: One hundred and twenty-eight nurses and allied health professionals participated at pretest as well as posttest. Significant improvements were found on work functioning (p = 0.01) and work-related fatigue (p < 0.01). Work functioning had relevantly improved in 30% of participants. A small meaningful effect on stress was found (Cohen d = .23) in the participants who had logged onto an EMH intervention (20%, n = 26). Conclusion: The EMH approach to WHS improves the work functioning and mental health of nurses and allied health professionals. However, because we found small effects and participation in the offered EMH interventions was low, there is ample room for improvement.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.156-167
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• 1997

In Korea, based on the Revised Law of Occupational Safety and Health a new entity of institution was set up in 1990 to provide occupational health services to SSE in which three sorts of personnel as a team have to be involved. These institutions, in charge of scores to hundreds of workplace area-wide, have been providing occupational health services without payment from employers or employees, and government reimburses through the Occupational Injury Prevention Insurance since 1993. As a service provider, a team is composed of doctors, nurses and industrial hygienists. Undergraduate and postgraduate educations for the SSE occupational health are not specified and the question on the performance of the personnel has been raised. This study was designed to analyze the facilitating factors of and barriers to the performance and its improvement of these personnel. In 1997, the survey was conducted with all 58 institutions. Structured questionnaires were mailed to 200 personnel who were providing the occupational health service for SSE. The response rate was 51.7% for doctors, 58.6% for nurses, and 60.3% for industrial hygienist, respectively. Results are as follows : 1) There is a guideline for occupational service mandated by the government. Under the guideline, the minimum frequency of visiting workplace is assured with six times of doctors, 17 times for nurse and industrial hygienist in a year. There are one doctor for every 200 factories, one nurse and one hygienist for every 100 factories. 2) All respondents have basic qualification for occupational health service. About 16.7%. of doctors are certified in industrial medicine or preventive medicine, and 64.7% of industrial hygienists had first grade certification. Totally 66.7% of personnel have been involved in occupational health for more than one year. 3) As a support system for the performance improvement, 66.3% respond that they have been provided with educational materials, advice related to industrial environment and guidance of MSDS from Korea Industrial Safety Corporation. Most respondents indicate the lack of concern of employers and employees as a main barrier to the improvement of the service. Also they are in the need of the training opportunity more focused on SSE. The Governments policy for SSE is a principal facilitating factor. Training program focused on SSE situation, manpower, technical support, etc. are areas to be improved to have a better occupational health service for SSE in Korea.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.90-96
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• 2015

Background: The physical work demands of construction work can be reduced using ergonomic measures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of ergonomic measures related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among construction workers. Methods: A questionnaire was sent at baseline and 2 years later to 1,130 construction workers. We established (1) the proportion of workers reporting an increase in their use of ergonomic measures, (2) the proportion of workers reporting a decrease in MSDs, (3) the relative risk for an increase in the use of ergonomic measures and a decrease in MSDs, and (4) workers' knowledge and opinions about the use of ergonomic measures. Results: At follow-up, response rate was 63% (713/1,130). The proportion of workers using ergonomic measures for vertical transport increased (34%, 144/419, p < 0.01); for measures regarding horizontal transport and the positioning of materials, no change was reported. The proportion of workers reporting shoulder complaints decreased (28%, 176/638, p = 0.02). A relationship between the use of ergonomic measures and MSDs was not found; 83% (581/704) of the workers indicated having sufficient knowledge about ergonomic measures. Lightening the physical load was reported to be the main reason for using them. Conclusion: Only the use of ergonomic measures for vertical transport increased over a 2-year period. No relationship between the use of ergonomic measures and MSDs was found. Strategies aimed at improving the availability of ergonomic equipment complemented with individualized advice and training in using them might be the required next steps to increase the use of ergonomic measures.