Relationship among Noise Exposure, Noise Annoyance, Emotional Intelligence, and Cognitive Emotional Regulation: A Generalized Structural Equation Modeling

Background and Aim: There is evidence of associations between noise exposure and psychological outcomes from noise annoyance. This study aims to examine the mediating role of noise annoyance in the relationship of noise exposure with Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation (CER). Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted on 58 male workers of a lead mine in Yazd, Iran. Noise exposure was determined based on ISO 9612:2009. Noise annoyance was assessed using the ISO/TS 15666:2003’s numerical rating scale. The Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (modified version) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) were used for data collection. Mann-Whitney U test, correlation test, and Generalized Structural Equation Modeling (GSEM) were used to analyze the data. Results: The mean age of workers was 35.78±7.10 years. A significant relationship was found between noise annoyance and noise exposure, such that a unit increase in noise exposure had a multiplicative effect on the odds of experiencing more annoyance (p<0.001). Also, for every one-unit increase in noise annoyance, mean scores for EI and CER decreased by 0.192 and 0.172, respectively. Conclusion: Noise exposure is directly related to noise annoyance and indirectly related to EI and CER. Further studies in this area are recommended to clarify the issue and the relationships between these variables

The effects of psychological risk factors at work on cognitive failures through the accident proneness

Background Various agents such as psychosocial items and accident proneness can affect cognitive failures through different paths. The probable paths are the direct effects of workplace psychosocial items on cognitive failures and their indirect effects on cognitive failures through the mediator variable of accident proneness, which has not yet been studied by others. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate these paths. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted on 164 male employees of Karoon Sugar Company in 2018. The participants were asked to complete a background and demographic questionnaire, Broadbent cognitive failures scale, accident proneness questionnaire, and Copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire. Obtained data were analyzed and modeled using the statistical descriptive method, ANOVA, independent t-test, Pearson correlation test, and path analysis in the SPSS and AMOS software. Results The results of the path analysis showed that, not only, some psychosocial risk items had a significant direct effect on cognitive failures, but also, they could affect cognitive failures through the accident proneness, indirectly. Work-family conflict and social support from supervisors by coefficients of 0.188 and - 0.187 had the highest direct effects, respectively. The highest indirect effects belonged to justice and respect, and work-family conflict by coefficients of - 0.220 and 0.199, respectively. The highest total effects were also related to the work-family conflict and justice and respect by coefficients of 0.387 and - 0.381, respectively. Conclusions In total, our results showed that some psychological items could, directly and indirectly, increase cognitive failure through accident proneness

Relationship among noise exposure, sensitivity, and noise annoyance with job satisfaction and job stress in a textile industry

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among noise exposure, sensitivity, and noise annoyance with job satisfaction and job stress among the workers of a textile industry. In this study, Weinstein’s Noise Sensitivity Scale, Noise Annoyance Questionnaire (recommended based on ISO 15666-2003), Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Job Stress Questionnaire, and Job Satisfaction Scale were used to determine the degree of noise sensitivity, noise annoyance, occupational stress, and job satisfaction, respectively. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the mean of job satisfaction, job stress, noise sensitivity, and noise annoyance between case and control groups. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed that noise exposure, noise sensitivity, and noise annoyance can justify 0.09, 0.19, and 0.06 of the variance of job stress, respectively. These variables also could justify 0.09, 0.12, and 0.05 of the variance of job satisfaction, respectively. Noise sensitivity had the greatest effect on increasing the occupational stress and job satisfaction

Indoor Environmental Quality, Climate Change, and Life Quality

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Dynamic Quantitative Risk Assessment (DQRA): New Fields of Study in Risk Assessment

No abstract This article no has abstrac

Evaluating the Effects of a Training Intervention on Increasing the Workers’ Use of Hearing Protective Equipment by Kirk Patrick Model in Yazd Persepolis Tile Industry

Background: According to the Labor Code, one of the important duties of employers in the field of safety and health is the provision of personal protective equipment and its training to workers. How to train workers who are willing to use the earmuff all the time is an issue that needs to be addressed. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a training intervention with the BASNEF model in increasing the duration of the use of hearing protective equipment by workers. Methods: This is an evaluation study that was carried out in Yazd tile industry in 2015. The research population in this study was 50 workers who were trained according to the BASNEF model. After developing a questionnaire based on the structures of Kirk Patrick's evaluation model, with the acquisition of validity, trained workers completed the questionnaire. Results: The highest mean scores were respectively in the results 87.06 (12), behavior 86.30 (9.59), learning 84.87 (13.55), content 81.36 (10.70) and the response 81.28 (11.33). In general, the score of the evaluation domains is above 80.Conclusion: According to the findings, BASNEF&lsquo;s training course is effective in increasing the duration of workers' use of protective hearing equipment

Risk Assessment by FMEA Method and the Impact of Deploying an Integrated Management System (IMS) Risk Priority Number (RPN)

Introduction: Risk assessment an organized approach to detecting risks and estimating risk has been acceptable to reduce risk. Also, due to the increasing trend of implementation of the integrated management system (IMS) in different industries to improve the level of safety, health and environment standards, we determined to measure the impact of this system's deployment on safety performance monitoring indicators using the FMEA methodology for estimating risk and calculating the RPN. Methods: This study is an interventional study. In this study, first all the high-risk activities of the organization were identified, then, the value of RPN was obtained using the product of intensity (A), probability (B) and discovery (C) depending on the acceptable level of the organization and the Pareto chart (80:20), the organization's unacceptable RPNs were identified and corrective action was taken. Results: The mean of RPN decreased significantly between 2010 and 2014. Considering the fact that the number of activities has increased with the expansion of the production line, the calculations show that in the years 91 and 93, the amount of RPN significantly decreased compared to the previous years (P <0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that the implementation of the integrated management system (IMS) significantly influenced the FMEA risk assessment indicators and improved the safety level of the studied plant

Effect of Integrated Management System on Occupational Hazards Reduction

Background: Today, organizations need to comply with environmental standards, employees, customers, and others in order to achieve competitive advantage and performance globally. One of these standards is an integrated management system. One of the standards in an integrated management system is safety and health that is currently being considered as one of the most important worldwide issues, and emphasizes the goals of identifying harmful factors, evaluating, controlling, and managing. This study tries to measure the efficiency of an integrated management system by analyzing the annual report of work place damage before and after implementing this system. Methods: This descriptive-analytic study was carried out in one of tile factories from 2009 to 2014 in Yazd. The data on the measurement of occupational harmful factors (sound, lighting, thermal stress, total dust) during the years of the study were collected and analyzed by the SPSS software version 19.Results: According to the results of measuring the harmful factors of the work place in this research, the establishment of an integrated management system on the environmental factors (sound, lighting, thermal stress and total dust) in the studied industry environment was positive and reduced issues out of standard and increased standard stations. Conclusion: The integrated management system establishment had positive effects on physical and chemical environmental factors and reduces costs, eliminates performance and ultimately improves the performance and efficiency

Development and Validity of Krik patrick\'s Evaluation Tool to Investiagte the Efficincy of the Training Course on Workers\' use of Hearing Protection Equipment

Background:The last strategy to protect workers' hearing against load noises is use of hearing protection devices. The efficiency of wearing headphone depends on its full time application. After education, we need to evaluate the efficiency of the conducted training course. One of the most important factors affecting a valid assessment is existence of an appropriate questionnaire to evaluate the course properly. Methods: In order to standardize and investiagte the validity of the researcher-made questionnaire, 12 experts were asked to review it. To determine the questionnaire's validity, we used the face validity and content validity. In order to determine the quantitative content validity, we applied the content&nbsp;validity&nbsp;ratio (CVR) and content&nbsp;validity&nbsp;index&nbsp;(CVI). Then, reliability of the questionnaire was investigated by Alpha-Cronbach method. Results: We designed 30 questions as the questionaire's items, containing five demographic questions, 10 response questions, four content questions, four learning questions, four behavior evaluation questions, and seven questions about the outcomes. In experts' content evaluation, questions with CVR of higher than 0.56 were selected; while, the CVI of the remaining questions was 0.91. The overall reliability of the research tool was 0.83 using the internal consistency.Conclusion: This study provided a valid and reliable questionnaire for assessing the Kirkpatrick model. This questionnaire can be used as an appropriate tool to evaluate the training courses in accordance with the BASNEF model to increase the duration of using headphones by workers. &nbsp

Estimate of the Percent Reduction of the Workers Hearing Loss by Doing a Training Intervention Based on BASNEF Pattern

If we want to provide the efficient training intervention to increase the duration of using heating protection devices (HPDs) by workers, we need a tool that can estimate the person’s hearing threshold taking into account noise exposure level, age, and work history, and compare them with audiometry to find out the percent reduction of workers hearing loss. First, the workers noise exposure level was determined according to ISO 9612, then 4000 Hz audiometry was done to find age and work history. On basis of ISO 1999 the hearing threshold was estimated and if the hearing protection device was not used continuously and correctly, the hearing protection device’s actual performance was reduced adjusted with person’s audiometry. After training intervention, the estimate was done again and was compared with the adjusted audiometry. According to ISO 1999 standard estimation results, the percent reduction of the workers hearing loss level was 6.48 dB in intervention group. This level remained unchanged in control group. The mean score of hearing threshold estimation (standard ISO 1999) was statistically more significant than mean score of hearing threshold (p-value ¡ 0.001). The results show not significant change in control group due to Lack of changing of noise exposure level. In regards to the results of hearing threshold estimation based on ISO 1999 and comparing with workers audiometry, it can be seen that BASNEF training intervention increases the duration of Rusing the HPDs and it could be effective in reducing hearing threshold related to noise