• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.42-52
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to identify the factors affecting compliance with personal protective equipment (PPE) use among medical device reprocessing staff. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study included 163 cleaning staff members from ten general hospitals in Seoul and Gyeonggi. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires administered between July and September 2023. Analysis included t-tests, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient, Bonferroni correction, and multiple regression, conducted using SAS ver.9.4. Results: Statistically significant differences in compliance with PPE were found based on department and exposure to contamination within six months (t=-2.82, p=.007). Attitudes toward PPE (r=.22, p=.006) and awareness of the safety climate (r=.22, p=.006) showed a statistically significant positive correlation with PPE compliance. Factors influencing use of personal protective equipment by cleaning staff during medical device reprocessing were department, compliance with PPE, and awareness of the safety climate. The explanatory power of these factors was 58.0%. Conclusion: Improving PPE compliance and creating a safe cleaning environment entails fostering a supportive safety climate. Additionally, regular training that takes into consideration the characteristics of the cleaning staff, alongside continuous monitoring, is required.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.83-89
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• 2013

Occupational Safety and Health Act provides that industrial safety helmets are personal protective equipment(PPE) to protect heads against falls from a height. Relevant domestic regulations are distinguished and different from other countries' cases. This study investigated industrial safety helmet's protective purposes and characteristics related to falls and the notion of fall prevention. A comparative analysis of regulations on safety helmets and fall prevention as well as standards on safety helmet's impact test requirements is followed by a literature review. It is also suggested that the term "fall" related to safety helmets should be changed to "impact on the upper part of head" in domestic regulations and standards.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Fundamentals of Nursing
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.402-410
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• 2016

Purpose: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to protect healthcare workers from pandemic outbreaks. This study was designed to identify nurses' knowledge, attitude and perceptions on PPE. Methods: Data were collected from 154 nurses working at a tertiary general hospital, where positively diagnosed and suspected patients were accepted and admitted during the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus outbreak in 2015. The PPE tool consists of 20 items for knowledge, and 5 each for attitudes and perceptions. Results: Overall, knowledge for PPE was higher than moderate (76.95/100), but there was a lack for items related to powered air purifying respirator (PAPR). For attitudes, willingness to work in pandemic outbreaks was the most positive (4.04/5.00). Goggles and PAPR were perceived as the most uncomfortable barriers to work. There was no correlation between knowledge, attitude and perceptions, despite a strong positive correlation between attitude and perceptions. PPE training was identified as a factor to improve knowledge and attitudes on PPE. Conclusion: To respond to pandemic influenza, nurses need to expand their knowledge on PPE up to Level C, and be updated through regular training. Study findings suggest that repetitive studies targeting nurses and other healthcare workers at various hospital settings are necessary.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.222-248
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• 1996

This study was designed to survey misused expression in 37 KS (Korean Industrial standards) related to personal protective equipment. The results were as follows: 1. One hundred and twenty five misused expressions were found - 44 expressions were used illogically (35.2 %). 80 expressions were wrongly described (64.0 %) The types of illogically misused are: 10 illogical cases, 4 cases of a wrongly designated provision when cited, 12 cases of the lack of provisons for KS, 7 cases of a inappropriate uses of units, 8 cases of an overlapped sizes between standards. - The types of expressions wrongly described are: 30 cases of confusion in using an terms, 4 case of making an error when proofreading, and 29 cases of choosing words not appropriate to describe technical standard, 18 cases of unclear provisons due to missing phrases and terms, and 11 cases of provisons described differently from original intended purposes. 2. There is one case, where the same standard is categorized as two different names. There are three major causes of the misused expressions as seen from the following summary: - Imitated the developed countries' standards without filtering them by considering domestic law and ocher KS standards. - Tended to create each definition for each standard instead use of the basic standard. - Insufficiency of synthetic examination to the correlation between standards.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.85-103
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• 2021

Purpose: This study measured the mental health levels of 119 paramedics, and identified the association of mental health levels with safety environments, personal protective equipment, and coronavirus risk awareness. Methods: A total of 119 out of 428 from Daegu and Gyeongbuk took part in this study. The statistical analysis methods were the t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. Results: In a multiple regression analysis, females (β=-.137, p=<.001) showed a higher relevance to negative mental health than males. The moderate satisfied (β=-.088, p=.014) and dissatisfied (β=-.147, p=.006) showed a higher relevance to negative mental health than higher satisfied. Moderate stress perception (β=-.199, p=<.001) and higher stress perception (β=-.414, p=<.001) showed a higher relevance to negative mental health than lower stress perception. Corona-virus risk awareness (β=-.050, p=.045) was related to negative mental health and safety environment (β=.136, p=<.001). Personal protective equipment (β=.147, p=<.001) were related to positive mental health. Conclusion: Conclusively, it is necessary to develop and implement high-quality intervention programs using significantly influencing variables to impact the mental health of 119 paramedics.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.180-186
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• 2022

Background: In occupational studies, it is a known situation that technical and organizational attempts are used to prevent occupational accidents. Especially in the mining sector, if these attempts cannot prevent occupational accidents, personal protective equipment (PPE) becomes a necessity. Thus, in this study, the main objective is to examine the effects of the variables on the use of PPE and identify important factors. Methods: A questionnaire was implemented and structural equation modeling was conducted to ascertain the significant factors affecting the PPE use of mining employees. The model includes the factors that ergonomics, the efficiency of PPE and employee training, and PPE usage habit. Results: The results indicate that ergonomics and employee training have no significant effect (p > 0.05) on the use of PPE. The efficiency of PPE has a statistically meaningful effect (p < 0.05) on the use of PPE. Various variables have been evaluated in previous studies. However, none of them examined the variables simultaneously. Conclusion: The developed model in the study enables to better focus on ergonomics and employee training in the PPE usage. The effectiveness of a PPE makes its use unavoidable. Emphasizing PPE effectiveness in OHS training and even showing them in practice will increase employees' PPE usage. The fact that a PPE with high effectiveness is also ergonomic means that it will be used at high rates by the employee.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.191-198
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• 2022

This study was to provide education on hand hygiene and personal protective equipment(PPE) to nursing students and to investigate the effects of knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. This was a single group, pre-post quasi-experimental design. This study was conducted from October 28 to November 30, 2021 using a structured questionnaire targeting 18 students in the 3rd year of college nursing. Data analyzed by descriptive statistics and paired t-test. As a result of the study, hand hygiene knowledge (t=3.33, p=.004) and PPE knowledge (t= -11.02, p<.001) significantly increased through hand hygiene and PPE education, and attitude toward personal protective equipment (t =-2.76, p=.013) and self-efficacy (t=-3.69, p=.002) all significantly increased. Therefore, based on the results of this study, it is considered necessary to develop a systematic and repetitive hand hygiene and personal protective equipment education program, and it will be used as basic data for program development.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.156-170
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• 2023

Objectives: This study conducted practical training to improve the proper usage of personal protective equipment(PPE), which greatly impacts workplace safety and health management. Personal protective equipment education was conducted through active participation, without theoretical modules, and aimed to identify the effects of repeated practical education and determine ways to increase participant satisfaction. Methods: Study data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics ver.29 software. First, participants' general characteristics were analyzed with frequency analysis. Second, the normality and equality of variances (Leven's test) were tested for the dependent variables prior to statistical analyses to determine the use of parametric tests. In general, normality is assumed when the sample size is 30 or more per the central limit theorem (Park et al., 2014). As our sample size of health management workers was 43, normality can be assumed. However, to ensure rigor of the study, we examined skewness and kurtosis. The results confirmed that the data were normally distributed. Third, the effects of repeated PPE training were analyzed using paired t-tests. Fourth, differences in satisfaction with PPE training according to the safety and health job position and safety and health certification were analyzed with t-test and Welch's t-test. For parameters that did not meet the assumption of equal variances, the Welch's t-test was performed. Results: Repeated PPE training improved the educational outcomes, and the improvements were significant in the 1st and 2nd respiratory PPE and safety and hygiene PPE training evaluations (p<.001). In terms of safety and health job position, repeated training led to improvements in educational outcomes, with significant improvements observed among supervisors and specialized health management institution workers in the 1st and 2nd training evaluations (p<.005). In terms of safety certification, repeated training led to improvements in educational outcomes, with significant improvements observed among both certified and non-certified individuals (p<.005). Regarding satisfaction with PPE training according to safety and health job positions, specialized health management institution workers showed greater satisfaction than supervisors, with significant differences in the satisfaction for expertise of lecture, work relevance, and lecturer's attitude (p<.001). Regarding satisfaction with PPE training according to safety and health certification, satisfaction was higher among certified individuals, with significant differences in satisfaction for work relevance and lecture attitude (p<.05) Conclusions: PPE education should be recommended to be provided as practical training. Repeated training can enhance educational outcomes for individuals with inadequate knowledge and understanding of PPE prior to education. For individuals with high levels of pre-existing knowledge and understanding of PPE, the results show that various training experiences should be provided to enhance their satisfaction. Therefore, it suggests that the workplace should actively seek educational media and methods to acquire expertise and skills in wearing personal protective equipment and improve the ability to use

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

We are investigated about the state of the working circumstances and infection blocking facility within Metropolitan, Chungcheong and Gyeongsang regions in Korea. The result is as follows. The HAV vaccination rate is 35% and the HBV vaccination rate is 50% among the funeral directors. We expected that the infection risk of funeral directors was very high. Significantly, tuberculosis prevalence rate of funeral director was four times as high as the public. The wear rate of gown, mask, gloves showed relatively high than the others. The wear rate of individual protective equipments has decreased with work experience. The funeral directors have shown that there is difficult to get safe protection from infection. The personal hygiene of funeral directors and the infection blocking equipment should be strengthened institutionally. We are thought to recommend institutional support about infection management, individual protective equipment, vaccination of funeral director and guideline to avoid reversion to previous habitual behavior.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.294-301
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• 2020

Man-In-Simulant Test(MIST) provides a test method to evaluate chemical protective equipments such as protective garments, gloves, footwear and gas mask. The MIST chamber is built to control concentration of chemical vapor that has a activity space for two persons. Non-toxic methyl-salicylate(MeS) is used to simulate chemical agent vapor. We carried out to measure inward leakage MeS vapors by using passive adsorbent dosimeter(PAD) which are placed on the skin at specific locations of the body while man is activity according to the standard procedure in MIST chamber. But more time is required for PADs and there is concern of contamination in PADs by recovering after experiment. Therefore detector for measuring in real time is necessary. In order to analyze in real time the contamination of the personal protective equipment inside the chemical environment, we have developed a wireless real-time gas detector. The detector consists of 8 gas-sensors and 1 control-board. The control-board includes a CPU for processing a signal, a power supply unit for biasing the sensor and Bluetooth-chipset for transmission of signals to external PC. All signals from gas-sensors are converted into digital signals simultaneously in the control-board. These digital signals are stored in external PC via Bluetooth wireless communication. The experiment is performed by using protective equipment worn on manikin. The detector is mounted inside protective equipment which is capable of providing a real-time monitoring inward leakage MeS vapor. Developed detector is demonstrated the feasibility as real-time detector for MIST.