• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2024

Background: As social distancing persists and interest in work-life balance grows, more companies are adopting flexible work policies. While there have been studies on sleep disorders associated with different types of work, such as shift work, research exploring the relationship between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders is still limited, particularly among Korean workers. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of the 6th Korean Working Conditions Survey, focusing on 31,243 paid workers out of a total of 50,538 participants. We defined flexible workers as those who set their own working hours. Sleep disorders were divided into three categories: 'difficulty falling asleep,' 'frequent waking during sleep,' and 'waking up feeling exhausted and fatigued.' Using scores derived from three specific symptoms, the Minimal Insomnia Symptoms Scale (MISS) was calculated to assess the prevalence of insomnia. We used chi-square tests to analyze demographic and job-related differences. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to identify any relationship between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders. Results: Significant differences were found between flexible and non-flexible workers regarding age, income level, education level, and job type. Flexible workers reported sleep-related symptoms significantly more often. The odds ratio for insomnia was 1.40 (95% CI 1.21-1.61). For males, the odds ratio was 1.68 (1.36-2.08). Conclusion: This study establishes a correlation between flexible work schedules and sleep disorders among Korean salaried workers. Potential causes could include changes in circadian rhythm, increased work demands, and extended working hours. To precisely determine causality and associated diseases, further research is required.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.313-322
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify novice nurses' experience of turnover. Methods: Data were collected from June to August, 2014 through in-depth interview and E-mail. Twelve novice nurses with turnover experiences were selected through snowball sampling method. All interviews were recorded with MP3 recorder and transcribed for analyzing by Van Kaam method of phenomenology. Results: The results were divided into 4 categories, 20 themes, and 119 formulated meaning related to turnover experience. These four categories were 'Excessively heavy working environment', 'Relationship problem', 'Physical/emotional withdrawal', and 'Realizing the absence of goal in job'. Conclusion: The result of this study will offer anticipatory information to understand of novice nurses' difficulties and to prevent their turnover. And these findings can be used for nursing administrators to design a turnover prevention program more effectively for nurses.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.385-395
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• 2021

Objectives: This study aimed to select items for technical guidelines through the guidelines of the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) for agricultural workplaces. Methods: All 1,308 guidelines provided by KOSHA were reviewed and categorized using a Delphi technique questionnaire on their compatibility and urgency. Results: Among all the KOSHA guidelines, 100 items related to agricultural workplaces were selected. After that, two Delphi questionnaires were conducted and 46 items were finally selected. The average compatibility was calculated as 4.26, and urgency was 2.39. As a result of measuring the content validity of 46 items, six items were identified that were not relevant to agriculture. The final selected items were classified into four categories: Health examination and management, machinery standards, safety and health standard guides, and workplace environment management. Conclusions: The various risk factors at agricultural workplaces should be prevented and managed. It was shown that related technical guidelines or work standard manuals should be prepared. The technical guidelines of KOSHA will be provided as basic categories in the agricultural sector.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the meaning of job experiences of fixed night shift nurses participating in a pilot project by a tertiary hospital, and to provide basic information for improving their night shift working environment. Methods: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted using individual interviews in September 2022. Three female nurses who worked fixed night shifts were recruited from a tertiary hospital. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Results: By analyzing the meaning of job experience as a fixed night shift nurse, four categories and nine subcategories were identified. The four categories of job experience of fixed night shift nurses were: expecting an improvement physical health due to predictable working hours, enjoying leisure time due to long off-duty hours, regretting for loosened relationships, and considering a successful settlement of fixed night shift nursing. Conclusion: As night shift work is essential for nurses to provide continuous nursing to patients, it is necessary to develop various strategies to improve the physical health of night shift nurses through fatigue management and good sleep quality, mental health through work-life harmony, and social health through intimate relationships between patients and coworkers.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.5-18
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to survey working conditions of women workers. We conducted a field survey of 504 manufacturing company with many women working from May 13 to June 29, 2002. We focused on only 3 categories of metal, textile and electronics industry. The result were as follows : 1. Subjects were constituted metal 27.0%, textile 37.9% and electronics industry 35.1%. Size distribution was small scale(<50 workers) 38.1%, medium(50-299 workers) 50.2% and large(${\geq}300$ workers) company 11.7%. Women workers' proportion was 43.6% of total workers, 63.8% of total contractors. 2. A medical examination enforcement of contractors workers was very poor in comparison with that of employees(p<0.001). 3. A 53.8% of total companies have conducted shiftwork system and 2-crew 2-shift(12 hours shift system) ranked first, 56.1%(151 companies). 4. Only 61.3% of total companies conducted more than 90 days as legal standard of a maternity leave and only 2.6% of total companies had a day nursery. In conclusion, many strategies for women workers are needed by companies and government. For example, the raising of understanding about maternity protection, social support insurancing of woman worker and occupational health system improvement for contractors and small size companies.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.23-41
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• 2017

Objectives: In this study, we seek to perform a priority selection for test substances for chronic inhalation toxicity studies, including acute and subchronic inhalation toxicity studies, which are to be performed after the construction of a chronic/carcinogenicity inhalation toxicity study facility and enactment of pertinent legislation. Methods: Through this study, qualitative and quantitative priority evaluation of test substances according to acute, subchronic and chronic categories were respectively performed and priorities were suggested by expert group review, redundancy and other methods. Meanwhile, a draft on test substance selection criteria, procedures and methods referring to the National Toxicology Program (NTP) system was proposed. Results: This study selected priorities for candidate substances for chronic inhalation toxicity studies to be conducted from 2016. Conclusions: In the future, by assessing in advance the toxicological effects of chemicals to which workers can be potentially exposed in the workplace via long-term inhalation, expected health disturbances among workers will be reduced and it is anticipated that occupational disease induced by chemicals will be effectively prevented.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.311-316
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• 2021

Background: The present study investigated the association between two domains of physical activity (occupational physical activity [OPA] and leisure-time physical activity [LTPA]) and sleep duration. Methods: We investigated 3,421 paid workers from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2014-2015. Sleep duration was categorized into three categories (short for less than 5 h, optimal for 5-9 h, and long for more than 9 h). OPA and LTPA were defined in terms of answers to relevant questions. Odds ratios were calculated for sleep duration according to each physical activity domain using multinomial logistic regression models. Results: There were 464 subjects (13.6%) who showed short sleep duration, and 169 subjects (4.9%) who showed long sleep duration. Prevalence of OPA and LTPA was higher in male workers than in female workers (for OPA: 3.67% and 1.76%, respectively, p = 0.0108; for LTPA: 16.14% and 6.07%, respectively, p < 0.0001). The odds ratio of OPA for long sleep duration in female workers was 3.35 (95% confidence interval, 1.37-8.21). Otherwise, LTPA was not associated with sleep duration in female paid workers, nor both physical activity domains in male paid workers. Conclusion: Female paid workers with work-related physical activity were at risk of oversleeping. These findings also suggested that physical activity has distinct associations with sleep duration according to the physical activity domains and sex.

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Sensory Integration
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.39-54
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• 2022

Objective : The purpose of this study was to identify the experiences of novice occupational therapists working at a child private clinic center in the clinical experience process of sensory integration therapy and to understand the adaptation process in child private clinic center. Methods : The participants were four occupational therapists with less than 1 year of clinical experience. Data collection was conducted through in-depth interviews, and the recorded interview responses were transcribed and analyzed. The analysis of the data was made by phenomenological analytic method suggested by Giorgi. Results : As a result of analyzing the adaptation process of novice occupational therapists working at the child private clinic center, 3 categories, 6 themes, and 16 main meanings were derived. Novice occupational therapists experienced difficulties arising from clinical, obstacles from the working environment, positive factors inside the center, support from outside the center, self-effort, and changes through adaptation experience. Conclusion : Along with changes to the social system and pediatric rehabilitation institution, one's own effort are also required so that novice child occupational therapists working at child private clinic centers can adapt and perform at their roles.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.108-113
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• 2021

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between changes in employment status and new-onset depressive symptoms through a one-year follow-up of permanent waged workers. Methods: We analyzed the open-source data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study. Using the 2017 data, we selected 2,314 permanent waged workers aged 19 to 59 years without depressive symptoms as a base group. The final analysis targeted 2,073 workers who were followed up in 2018. In 2018, there were five categories of employment status for workers who were followed up: permanent, precarious, unemployed, self-employed, and economically inactive. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine the association between employment status change and new-onset depressive symptoms. Results: Adjusted multiple logistic regression analysis showed that among male workers, workers who went from permanent status to being unemployed (odds ratio: 4.50, 95% confidence interval: 1.19 to 17.06) and from permanent status to being precarious workers (odds ratio: 3.15, 95% confidence interval: 1.30 to 7.65) had significantly high levels of new-onset depressive symptoms compared with those who retained their permanent employment status. There were no significant increases in new-onset depressive symptoms of male workers who went from permanent status to being self-employed or economically inactive. On the other hand, no significant differences were found among female workers. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the change of employment status to precarious workers or unemployment can cause new-onset depressive symptoms in male permanent waged workers.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.246-254
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• 2018

Psychological stress and physical fatigue, such as anxiety, fear, sleep disturbance, etc., caused by exposure to the war, can lead to post-traumatic stress syndrome(PTSD) or war syndrome. The military has also prepared for drug use to minimize war syndrome and preserve combat strength. However, efforts to prevent war syndrome are still lacking. This study was conducted to identify biomarkers that can track psychophysiological changes. Psychophysiological changes associated with PTSD can be divided into four main categories. The four categories are behavioral changes, changes in brain cognition, neuroimmunological changes, and changes in innate immunity. This study suggest that biomarker profile can be made by the distance moved and the anxiety-like behavior in the open field for behavior category, brain BDNF levels in the brain cognition category, serum corticosterone in the neuroimmunology category, and inflammatory cytokine levels in the innate immunity category.