• Korean Parent-Child Health Journal
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the recognition on center-based child care health programs for parents with ill children. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study with convenient sampling method was used and 136 parents were recruited from two university hospital outpatient departments and hospitalized wards, and they completed a structured questionnaire. Results: Majority (57.4%) of parents experienced a leaving work early or being absent from their work due to children's illness. Most dissatisfying factors in child care centers were child health management. Most of parents agreed on the need for a center-based child care health program, and wanted a better management of health care by health professionals in child care centers. Conclusion: These results support that there is a great demand for center-based child care health programs. These special programs are needed for reducing a child rearing burden for working mothers and overcoming the low birthrate in Korea. Health-care programs in child-care settings can help parents meet the health needs of their children while reducing absenteeism from work, thereby contributing to job stability. These results suggest discussions of the related policy with child care centers responsible and national health and educational authorities.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.201-206
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• 2022

Background: The present objective was to verify whether burnout (emotional exhaustion [EE], depersonalization [DP] and low professional efficacy [PE]) is a risk factor for long-term sickness absence (LTSA; 30 consecutive days) from the teaching role. Methods: This was a prospective cohort study with two years of follow-up that investigated 509 elementary and high-school teachers. Burnout was identified by Maslach Burnout Inventory. Poisson regression with robust variance was used to adjust for possible confounders. Results: The incidence of LTSA was 9.4%. High EE levels were associated with LTSA in the crude analysis, but the association lost statistical significance after adjustments (for sex, age, perception of work-life balance, general self-rated health, chronic pain and depression). High DP levels were associated with this outcome, even after all adjustments (relative risk = 1.80; 95% confidence interval: 1.05-3.09). Low PE levels were not related to LTSA. Conclusion: The results reinforce the need to improve teachers' work conditions to reduce burnout, particularly DP, and its consequences.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.203-209
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• 2014

Background: Coal mining is of significant economic importance to the Australian economy. Despite this fact, the related workforce is subjected to a number of psychosocial risks and musculoskeletal injury, and various psychological disorders are common among this population group. Because only limited research has been conducted in this population group, we sought to examine the relationship between physical (pain) and psychological (distress) factors, as well as the effects of various demographic, lifestyle, and fatigue indicators on this relationship. Methods: Coal miners (N = 231) participated in a survey of musculoskeletal pain and distress on-site during their work shifts. Participants also provided demographic information (job type, age, experience in the industry, and body mass index) and responded to questions about exercise and sleep quality (on-and off-shift) as well as physical and mental tiredness after work. Results: A total of 177 workers (80.5%) reported experiencing pain in at least one region of their body. The majority of the sample population (61.9%) was classified as having low-level distress, 28.4% had scores indicating mild to moderate distress, and 9.6% had scores indicating high levels of distress. Both number of pain regions and job type (being an operator) significantly predicted distress. Higher distress score was also associated with greater absenteeism in workers who reported lower back pain. In addition, perceived sleep quality during work periods partially mediated the relationship between pain and distress. Conclusion: The study findings support the existence of widespread musculoskeletal pain among the coal-mining workforce, and this pain is associated with increased psychological distress. Operators (truck drivers) and workers reporting poor sleep quality during work periods are most likely to report increased distress, which highlights the importance of supporting the mining workforce for sustained productivity.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.72-75
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• 2011

Sleep disorders such as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and restless legs syndrome (RLS) are very common disorders and may cause significant burden in terms of individual as well as societal aspects. Sleep insufficiency from such sleep disorders may cause deleterious effects on daily work life and may be associated with other major medical or psychiatric disorders including cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, depression, and anxiety disorder. Various motor or occupational accident may result from the sleep problems. In addition, recent researches provide the method to evaluate the lost productivity time in terms of absenteeism and presenteeism. Moreover, several studies on cost-effectiveness of treatment of sleep disorders show that it is cost-effective.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.393-399
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• 2019

Objective: This study investigates the impact of multimorbidity on work through a literature review of longitudinal studies. Methods: A systematic review was carried out in the databases Lilacs, SciELO, PAHO, PubMed/Medline, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane. There were no restrictions regarding the year of publication or language to maximize the identification of relevant literature. The quality of studies was assessed by the protocol STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). Results: An initial database search identified 7522 registries, and at the end of the analysis, 7 manuscripts were included in the review. Several studies have demonstrated direct and indirect impacts of multimorbidity on the health of workers. For this, the number of missed days due to health-related issues was evaluated, as well as the reduction in work productivity of the unhealthy worker, vulnerability of the worker with multimorbidity regarding higher indices of dismissal and recruitment difficulties, and incidence of early retirement and/or receipt of benefits due to disabilities. Conclusions: Multimorbidity has a negative impact on work, with damages to quality of life and work productivity, worsening the absenteeism/presenteeism indices, enhancing the chances of temporary or permanent leaves, and lowering employability and admission of individuals with multimorbidity.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.491-499
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• 2020

Background: Assembly lines work is frequently associated to work-related upper limb musculoskeletal disorders. The related disability and absenteeism make it important to implement efficient health surveillance systems. The main objective of this study was to identify self-reported variables that can determine work-related upper limb musculoskeletal symptoms-discomfort/pain-during a 6-month follow-up. Methods: This was a prospective study with a 6-month follow-up period, performed in an assembly line. Upper limb musculoskeletal discomfort/pain was assessed through the presence of self-reported symptoms. Uni- and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate which self-reported variables were associated to upper limb symptoms after 6 months at the present and to upper limbs symptoms in the past month. Results: Of the 200 workers at baseline, 145 replied to the survey after 6 months. For both outcomes, "having upper limb symptoms during the previous 6 months" and "education" were possible predictors. Conclusion: Our results suggest that having previous upper limb symptoms was related to its maintenance after 6 months, sustaining it as a specific determinant. It can be a hypothesis that this population had mainly workers with chronic symptoms, although our results give only limited support to self-reported indicators as determinants for upper limb symptoms. Nevertheless, the development of an efficient health surveillance system for high demanding jobs should implicate self-reported indicators, but also clinical and work conditions assessment should be accounted on the future.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.281-289
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• 2019

Purpose: This study aims to develop the Korean version of Presenteeism Scale for Students and verify its reliability and validity. Methods: This study conducted a survey with 320 undergraduate students who are attending nursing departments at three universities. The survey was conducted twice, from June 1 to August 31, 2017. Results: The Cronbach's α of K-PSS was .70 indicating high reliability. As a result of testing the content validity of K-PSS was verified by calculating the Item level-Content Validity Index (I-CVI) of .87. The correlation between Medical Outcome Study 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) score and Work Impairment Score (WIS), Work Output Score (WOS), Hours of absenteeism (HA) was analyzed to verify the concurrent validity of K-PSS. SF-36 score was correlated with WIS, WOS, HA. To test the differentiated validity of K-PSS, a total of 38 subjects were assessed by the paired t-test. As a result, only WIS score showed a significant difference between pre-test and post-test. Conclusion: Since the reliability and validity of the K-PSS developed through this study have been verified, it is expected to be used in various studies related to the presenteeism of students.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2017

Shift workers experience a disruption in the circadian sleep-wake rhythm, which brings upon adverse health effects such as fatigue, insomnia and decreased sleep quality. Moreover, shift work has deleterious effects on both work productivity and safety. In this review, we present a brief overview of the current literature on the consequences of shift work, especially focusing on attention-associated cognitive decline and related behavioral changes. We searched two electronic databases, PubMed and RISS, using key search terms related to cognitive domains, deleterious effects, and shift work. Twenty studies were eligible for the final review. The consequences of shift work can be classified into the following three categories extracted from the literature review : 1) work accidents ; 2) commuting accidents such as car accidents that occur on the way to and from work ; and 3) attendance management at work (i.e., absenteeism, tardiness, and unscheduled early departure). These cognitive and behavioral consequences of shift work were also found to be associated with sleep disorders in shift workers. Thus, improvements in the shift work system are necessary in order to enhance workers' health conditions, work productivity, and safety.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.35-39
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• 1980

The researcher intended to investigate the rate of absenteeism and other related statistics among the workers in a steel and iron industry with the criteria and the recommendation of the International Association on Occupational Health. With the well designed questionaire and interview, 1,882 workers were surveyed from July the 24th to the 28th, 1978. The results were as follows; The workers who experienced absence were 16.8% in July. The rate of frequency (spells) was 3.24, the duration was 4.65, the frequency (persons) was 345.20, and the lost time was 1.27. 41.0% among the absentee experienced sickness absences and the rates of sickness absence were as follow; the frequency (spells) nab 1.34, the duration was 2.29, the frequency (persons) was 101.06 and the lost time was 0.63, respectively. The main causes of sickness absence were general symptoms, such as fatigue (50.8%) and gastro-intestinal symptoms (13.8%). The frequency of sickness was highly correlated to the frequency of drinking, the amount of smoking, the physical work-load and the amount of drinking, which was analysed by the stepwize multiple regrssion analysis. The multiple R due to the above mentioned four variables was 0.320 and the R square was 10.3%.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2006

The present study reports on the results of a risk survey of machinery safety at a shoe factory in Qingdao, China. The aim is to decrease industrial accidents and increase worker job satisfaction by searching for a change from a trend analysis and making improvements in problem areas. The first risk survey for machinery safety was carried out in April 2005. Based on the analysis of the survey results, machinery safety devices was installed in the factory by using CATlA V5. Also, we investigated job satisfaction concerning working apparatus and work tool improvement in a questionnaire about the working environment. The second survey of machinery safety was carried out in September 2005. We are in the process of comparing the first survey results with the second survey results in order to analyze decreasing trend in industrial accidents and improvement in job satisfaction. So far the data have shown improved short-term turnover and absenteeism. It means CATIVA V5 and CFR has had positive effect regarding safety in shoe manufacture industry. The survey with CATIVA V5 and CFR will be expanded to other East-Asian countries including Vietnam. The hope is that the present approach could make a significant contribution toward improved safety.