• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.408-414
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• 2022

Background: This study aimed to determine and define the elements of an Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) diagnostic tool to assist an organization in systematically assessing its level of implementation of an FRMS. Methods: A modified Delphi process was used involving 16 participants with expertise in sleep science, chronobiology, and fatigue risk management within occupational settings. The study was undertaken in two stages 1) review of elements and definitions; 2) review of statements for each element. Each stage involved an iterative process, and a consensus rule of ≥ 60% was applied to arrive at a final list of elements, definitions, and statements. Results: Stage 1: a review of elements (n = 12) and definitions resulted in a final list of 14 elements and definitions with a consensus of ≥ 60% achieved after 2 Delphi rounds. Stage 2: a review of statements (n = 131) resulted in a final list of 119 statements with a consensus of ≥ 60% achieved after 2 Delphi rounds. Conclusion: The final FRMS diagnostic tool will enable an organization to systematically assess the level of implementation of their current FRMS and identify gaps and opportunities to reduce risk.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.102-109
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• 2024

Background: In today's modern world, longer working hours, shift work, and working at night have become major causes of the disruption of our natural circadian rhythms. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the type of shift work (rotating vs. fixed day), duty period (on-duty vs. off-duty), and working period within each shift (nighttime vs. daytime) on the circadian rhythm characteristics of nurses who provide direct patient care. Methods: This cross-sectional study used a purposive sampling method. Cosinor analysis was applied to analyze the actigraphy data of nurses providing direct patient care for seven consecutive days. The linear mixed effects model was then used to determine any variances between shift type, duty period, and working period within each shift for the nurses. Results: The mesor value did not differ according to nurses' shift type, duty period, and working period within each shift. The amplitude was statistically higher in on-duty nurses and in daytime working hours. The acrophase was significantly delayed in nighttime working hours. As well as nurses in rotating shift had experience. Conclusion: Our findings revealed that the peak activity of nurses occurs significantly later at night while working and nurses working during nighttime hours may have a weaker or less distinct circadian rhythm. Thus, this study suggests that limits be placed on the number of rotating nighttime shifts for nurses.

• 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.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-48
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• 2009

Purpose: Firefighters were subjected to be exposed to 24-hour shiftwork and high level of job stress, but there is little study of fire fighters about between Job Stress and Psychological stress in Korea. This study was performed to evaluate job stress of fire fighters grouped by different job types and analyze the health effect of job stress by using a PWI-SF(Psycho-social Well-being Index, Short Form). Methods : This study was to measure the degree of job stress and socio-psychological stress of firefighters working at 119 safety center and analyze the relationship between job stress and mental health, through self-administered questionnaire survey on 918 fire fighters working at fire department located in Korea, during October in 2008. Question items of the questionnaire consist of general characteristics, job stress, and socio-psychological stress. Job Stress Measurement Scale for Koreans was used to measure job stress, while PWI-SF used for socio-psychological stress. Collected data was analyzed through frequency analysis, ${\chi}^2$ test, one-way ANOVA, correlation analysis, multi-regression analysis using a statistic program, SPSS/10.0 Ver for Windows, and statistical significance level was 0.05. Result : Accordingly, this paper is written for the purpose of scrutinizing the reason of 119 rescuers' job stress and Socio-Psychological stress. This thesis tries to analyze a problem and provide contents through many variables concerned and theoretical investigation with the actual research of questionnaire. The results of the study are summarized as follows : Fire fighters feel relatively high stressful in their performance. Job stress, organizational commitment and burnout did not have been influence upon by individual cases such as economic condition, regular exercise etc. Finally, as a result of step by step regression analysis, the variable that can explain Socio-Psychological stress the best was negative emotion scale(NE). Conclusions : It is necessary to conduct repeated studies in the future, since the study implied that there was a contrary relationship between job stress and socio-psychological stress. In order to reduce job stress and maintain better mental health, it is more important than anything else to help firefighters have willingness and efforts to sustain a healthy life, so the development of various programs and education to raise their awareness should be implemented.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.71-81
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• 2005

Objective : To elucidate the correlates of self-rated fatigue in Korean employees. Methods : The data for 10,176 (men, 7,984; women, 2,192; mean age, 34.2; SD: 8.8) employees recruited from a nationwide sample were examined. A structured questionnaire was used to measure the participants' fatigue, sociodemographics (sex, age, education, and marital status), job-related characteristics (work duration, grade at work, work hours, shiftwork, employment type, and magnitude of workplace), and health-related habits (smoking, drinking, coffee intake, and exercise). Two types of measurement for fatigue were used to evaluate the magnitude of fatigue: self-rated question and a standardized measurement tool (Multidimensional Fatigue Scale: MFS). Results : According to the self-rated fatigue, 32% of employees reported that they felt fatigue for the past two weeks, and 9.6% of males and 8.7% of females had experienced excessive fatigue (6 months or more). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that fatigue measured by MFS was more common in women, younger, college or more graduated, single, and employees who do not regularly exercise. Fatigue was also associated with long work hours, and the size of the workplace (<1,000 employees). Conclusions : These results suggest that fatigue has been considered as a common complaint, and that it is affected by job-related factors like work hours and the workplace size as well as sociodemographics or health-related behaviors. Further research is needed to clarify the effects of fatigue on adverse health outcomes, work performance, work disability, sick absence and medical utilization, and to examine the relationship of job characteristics (e.g.: work demand, decision latitude) to fatigue.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.101-113
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• 2012

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Samgi-Halleak pharmacopuncture treatment on insomnia and fatigue. Methods : This study was done with 47 nurses under shiftwork schedule. Subjects were divided into two groups ; Samgi-Halleak pharmacopuncture treated group(experimental group, N=24), normal saline treated group(control group, N=23). The procedures had been conducted to the subjects injecting 0.1~0.2mL total 1mL, 0.5~1cm deep on each acupoint 2 times per week. The acupoints were Pungji($GB_{20}$), Gyeonjeong($GB_{21}$), Sinsu($BL_{23}$). Both of groups were treated total 8 times, but control group was treated additional pharmacopuncture the same way as experimental group after 8 times normal saline treatment. The collected data were analyzed with insomnia and fatigue at baseline and post pharmacopuncture using independent samples t-test, Paired t-test, ${\chi}^2$-test by SPSS 18.0 Windows program. Results : After 8 times treatment, the scores of both groups showed significant improvement in insomnia and fatigue. Comparing the experimental and control group, there were more significant improvement in experimental group than control group in the scores of insomnia and fatigue. Conclusions : Samgi-Halleak pharmacopuncture can be used for effective treatment in patients with insomnia and fatigue.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.166-175
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• 2017

Objectives: Shiftwork is known to be one of the common causes of sleep and health problems and finally causes the decreased quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the sleep patterns of shift-working and daytime psychiatric nurses using actigraphy and compare it with subjective assessment for sleep. Methods : Twenty-three shift-working and 25 daytime nurses were enrolled. They rated their sleep quality using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI) and other self-rating scales were measured for psychosocial aspects. Actigraphy was applied to the subjects for a total of 7 days to measure the sleep parameters. They also wrote sleep diaries during the period of wearing actigraphy. Sleep-related parameters of actigraphy, global score and components of PSQI, and the results of other self-rating scales were compared between shift-working and daytime nurses. Results : Although the global score of PSQI did not show significant difference, the PSQI components showed significant differences between two groups: the shift-working nurses showed lower sleep quality, more sleep disturbance and hypnotic medication use, and worsened daytime dysfunction than daytime nurses. The shift-working nurses showed significantly shorter total time in bed and total sleep time, lower sleep efficiency, and longer average awakening time than those of daytime nurses in actigraphy. Conclusions : The results showed that shift-working nurses experienced more sleep disturbances in both subjective and objective aspects of sleep than daytime nurses. This study also suggests that actigraphy may be useful to measure the objective aspects of sleep that are difficult to assess with subjective questionnaires alone.