The Prevalence of Needle sticks injuries among health care workers at a hospital in Tehran

ABSTRACT Needle stick injuries (NSIs) are one of the most significant and preventable hazards in relation to Healthcare workers (HCWs). Such injuries have been shown to be of high prevalence within developing countries. To determine the prevalence and circumstances pertaining to the occurrence of NSIs among HCWs employed at a special hospital. The study conducted was a cross-sectional study on HCWs and was carried out in one of Tehran's special hospitals in the year 2012. In this study, in order to identify and determine hazardous potential due to needle stick, HFMEA method was chosen. This resulted in the collection of 240 valid and reliable questionnaires. The validity and reliable nature of the questionnaires was confirmed by experts and by means of the test re-test method. The gathered data was analyzed with SPSS software, version 16.From the analysis of the data it was shown that, a total of 97 (40.42%) HCWs had suffered NSIs in the last year. The patient ward showed the highest prevalence of NSIs (47.42%) in the hospital. Nurses had the highest risk of suffering NSIs (56.7%) in comparison with the other occupational groups. All in all 175 NSIs occurred for the 240 HCWs trialed during the selected period of clinical practice. Of those that received injuries, only roughly 1 in 3 (38.14%) reported it to their infection control officer. Just over a quarter (26.80%) of the injured HCWs used post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against HIV. Almost all (88.75%) of the HCWs had received a safe injection course. In general, NSIs and their subsequent underreporting are commonplace among hospital healthcare professionals. Significantly, more than two-thirds of the injured HCWs did not use post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against HIV. Improved prevention and reporting strategies are needed if the occupational health and safety of healthcare workers is to improve

Prioritizacija i procjena ključa sigurnosti pokazatelja uspjeha u automobilskoj industriji

The performance of any management system needs to be monitored with adequate and proper indicators. This study aimed to identify, set priorities and assess key indicators for implementing an effective performance evaluation system. This descriptive-analytical study was carried out in three phase. In first phase, a semi-structured interview as well as a review of the company\u27s documentation and studies carried out, then a set of key indicators were collected and selected. The validity of the indicators were determined by experts (N = 11) and indicators were prioritized using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) according to SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time- bound) criteria. Following the study framework, a primary set of 60 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were collected. The results of the validity assessment showed 23 indicators had acceptable validity. The results of examining the relationships between the indicators showed that the percentage of corrected non- compliance and the number of risk assessments had a significant relationships with the total number of work-related lost time injuries as a lagging indicator. According to the results, the four the most important key performance indicators to assess the safety performance in the automotive industry were as follows: the number of risk assessments conducted, the percentage of corrected non- compliance, the percentage of safety educational programs implemented for workers, and Frequency Severity Index (FSI) index.Učinkovitost bilo kojeg sustava upravljanja treba pratiti odgovarajućim i ispravnim pokazateljima. Cilj ove studije bio je identificirati, odrediti prioritete i procijeniti ključne pokazatelje za primjenu učinkovitog sustava vrednovanja učinka. Ovo opisno-analitičko istraživanje provedeno je u tri faze. U prvoj fazi, polustrukturirani intervju, kao i pregled provedene dokumentacije i studija tvrtke, zatim je prikupljen i odabran skup ključnih pokazatelja. Valjanost pokazatelja odredili su stručnjaci (N = 11), a pokazatelji su odredili prioritete pomoću Analitičkog postupka hijerarhije (AHP) prema SMART (Specifični, mjerljivi, dostižni, relevantni i vremenski ograničeni) kriteriji. Slijedom okvira studije, prikupljen je primarni skup od 60 KPI. Rezultati procjene valjanosti pokazali su da 23 pokazatelja imaju prihvatljivu valjanost. Rezultati ispitivanja odnosa između pokazatelja pokazali su da je postotak ispravljene neusaglašenosti i broj procjena rizika u značajnoj vezi s ukupnim brojem ozljeda izgubljenog na radu kao pokazatelj zaostajanja. Prema rezultatima, četiri najvažnija ključna pokazatelja uspješnosti za procjenu sigurnosnih performansi u automobilskoj industriji bila su sljedeća: broj provedenih procjena rizika, postotak ispravljenih nesukladnosti, postotak provedenih obrazovnih programa o sigurnosti za radnike i indeks FSI

Occupational trauma in industrial and mining accidents in Iran during 2016-2017

Background and Objectives: Occupational diseases and accidents have been known as one of the leading causes of mortality in the world and are considered as one of the most important health, social, and economic risk factors in industrialized and developing societies. The present study aimed at investigating traumatic occupational accidents in Iranian mining and industrial sectors during 2016-2017. Methodology: This was a descriptive study conducted on the basis of registered data analysis from industrial and mining sector events in Iran by the relevant executive agency during a 1-year period. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. Results: Investigating the records of accidents in the given year suggested a total of 441 accidents including 379 industrial (85.9) and 62 mining accidents (14.1) in Iran. In this study, the number of lost work-days was 1,585,383. Direct and indirect costs due to accidents were 638,746,428.56 (US ). The most common type of incidents included fire, falling, and caught in or between objects, respectively. Conclusion: Human being plays a significant role in production cycle, and the deaths associated with work-related accidents, in addition to the loss of hardware investment, may result in a loss of life, lost years of employment, and related costs. Improving employer and employees' perception of management safety practices can be important to prevent the development of job injuries and to promote workers' safety and well-being

Assessment and Simulation of airflow pattern and particle with CFD method in a pharmaceutical industry

Background: clean room is an environment fully enclosed where parameters such as airborne particles under control and is requirement in the pharmaceutical industries to produce quality products. The aim of this study was to assessment and simulation of airflow and particle of clean room by CFD method in a pharmaceutical industry. Materials and Methods: This study used an experimental study that was conducted at 2015 in the pharmaceutical industry. The methodology used in this study was to evaluate the level and number of particles in the clean room according to the standard ISO 14644 – 3. Also, air flow and particle in cleanroom with cleanness of class C was simulated with Computational Fluid Dynamics. Results: The results showed that the path of particle movement and distribution of particles in the clean room completely depend on the shape of the flow and the pattern of air flow in the clean room. Furthermore, the results of the simulation showed that the particles in the clean room wall return particle removal efficiency of 70% at 0.5 and 5 microns.   Conclusion: There is equipment and a tool in a clean room effects on the airflow pattern. The results of simulation showed that the pattern of dispersion, air flow in the clean room is the most affected by the removal of particles. &nbsp

Adsorption of rhodamine B with activated carbon prepared from beech wood

Dyes release into waste water due to its toxicity for some organisms results in major environmental pollution problems. The activated carbon (AC) is an efficient adsorbent to remove this kind of pollutants from aqueous phase. Hence, in this research activated carbon was prepared from sound and rotted beech wood by chemical activation method and its adsorption capacity for removal of Rhodamine B was assessed. The carbonization and activation steps were performed at single stage with impregnating the substrate by zinc chloride as activating agent and with the ratio of 75, 100 and 125 percent to raw material mass at 400 and 500 ºC. The results showed that with increasing the impregnating agent content, the iodine number of ACs from both woods enhanced. The yield of AC from sound wood decreased with increasing impregnating agent while it was not predictable for AC resulted from rotted wood. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) studies revealed much morphological changes in the surface of rotted wood-AC in comparison with sound wood -AC after treatment with activating agent. Also, raising the activating temperature from 400 to 500 ºC caused to enhance the iodine number. All prepared ACs performed much efficient in removal of Rhodamine B from aqueous solution. The maximum adsorption of the dye was obtained for ACs prepared under impregnating ratio of 125 and activating temperature of 500 ºC

Assessing occupational exposure of airborne PMs and TVOCs in the nail salons in Tehran city, Iran

There are concerns about the health of nail salon technicians due to the inherently harmful agents such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and released particles in the salons. For this reason, this study was conducted to investigate the occupational exposure of nail salon technicians to VOCs and particulate matters (PMs) in the nail salons in Tehran, Iran. In this cross-sectional study, indoor air quality and measurement continually Total VOCs and PMs in the various size of PM1-PM10 using PhoCheck Tiger and particle counter device investigated, respectively. site observation, and an interview with the manager in 49 salons in Tehran. Data was analyzed using SPSS software (version 22). Mean concentrations of PM1 with 2.56 μɡ/m3 was the lowest amount and PM10 with 346.86μɡ/m3 had the highest concentration. Also, the mean concentration of TVOCs was equal 2.61 ppm. The results of the regression model showed that there is a statistically significant between the number of services with airborne PMs (PM2.5), (p-Value≤0.050). In salons only with nail activities, the concentration of PM4 was less than the others, although this correlation was statistically significant just for PM1 (p-Value = 0.010). By implementing effective local exhaust ventilation systems equipped with dust collectors and utilizing safe products, the emission of particles and chemical compounds within salons can be significantly reduced

Present of occupational accidents dimensions based on risk-injury affinity groups (case study, from1384 to 1393)

Background and aim: correspondence analysis method as the best method to optimize matrix functions that using the risk-injury matrix methods are analyzed. This method reduces the information contained in the risk-injury table and to determine the correlation between the variables in the matrix. The aim of this study is to present accidents and occupational hazards dimensions is dependent to risk-injury groups, using occupational accidents that can be managed. Method: in this study the reports of occupational accidents registered in the social security organization in a period of ten years from the beginning of 1384 until the end of 1393 ( 222,300 incidents) were collected and type of Risk and injury related to any accident identified based on criteria, the International Labour Organization and classified in a risk-injury matrix (18 × 18). Using correspondence analysis of dimensions are identified individually, this dimensions Most indicate the most correlation between risk and injury that facilitate decision-making in the risk assessment companies are covered by Social Security.  Results: Hair criteria recommends dimensions with inertia higher than 0.2 are suitable for the study and interpretation of results, based on this study were obtained from the dimensions of inertia (eigenvalue) greater than 0.2 include the dim1 ,dim2 ,dim3 to consider and the correlation between variables is obtained based on singular value (variable distance from the centeroid). (Singular value of dim1: 0.750, singular value of dimension 2: 0.647 and singular value dimension3: 0.521

The impact of emotional intelligence and personality traits on the occurrence of unsafe behaviors and needle stick injuries among the nurses

This study was aimed to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence and some personality traits on safe behavior and needle stick injuries among the nurses. This cross-sectional study was performed on 200 nursing staff of a hospital in Iran. To collect data, individuals were asked to complete several questionnaires, including demographic questionnaire, domain-specific risk-taking questionnaire, Rosenberg self-confidence questionnaire, Buss-Perry aggression questionnaire, Goleman emotional intelligence questionnaire, and safe behavior ques-tionnaire. Also, the number of needlestick injuries in the participants was extracted from their medical records. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software (version 22), and path analysis was performed using AMOS software. The prevalence of needle stick injuries in the subjects was estimated by 45.5 percent. The results showed that increasing risk-taking, increasing aggression, decreasing self-confidence, and decreasing emotional intelligence reduced safe behavior and increased the number of needle injuries (P < 0.001). In the present study, some personal traits affecting the occurrence of needlestick injuries were identified. It is recommended that people without these negative traits are applied in dangerous occupations with a high probability of needle stick injuries

Evaluation of the adsorption capacity of nano-graphene and nano-graphene oxide for xylene removal from air and their comparison with the standard adsorbent of activated carbon to introduce the optimized one

Introduction: Volatile organic compounds from industrial activities are one of the most important pollutants released into the air and have adverse effects on human and environment. Therefore, they should be removed before releasing into atmosphere. The aim of the study was to evaluate xylene removal from air by nano-grapheme and nano-graphene oxide in comparison with activated carbon adsorbent. Material and Method:&nbsp; After preparing adsorbents of activated carbon, nano-graphene, and nano-graphene oxide, experiments adsorption capacity in static mode (Batch) were carried out in a glass vial. Some variables including contact time, the amount of adsorbent, the concentration of xylene, and the temperature were studied. Langmuir absorption isotherms were used in order to study the adsorption capacity of xylene on adsorbents. Moreover, sample analysis was done by gas chromatography with Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). Results: The adsorption capacities of activated carbon, nano-graphene oxide and nano-graphene for removal of xylene were obtained 349.8, 14.5, and 490 mg/g, respectively. The results of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) for nano-graphene and nano-graphene oxide showed particle size of less than 100 nm. While, the results of Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) showed particle size of 45nm for nano-graphene and 65 nm for nano-graphene oxide. Also, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) showed cube structure of nano-adsorbents. Conclusion: In constant humidity, increase in exposure time and temperature caused an increase in the adsorption capacity. The results revealed greater adsorption capacity of xylene removal for nano-graphene compared to the activated carbon, and nano-graphene oxide

Characterization of radioactive aerosols in Tehran research reactor containment

The objectives of this research were to determine the levels of radioactivity in the Tehran research reactor containment and to investigate the mass-size distribution, composition, and concentration of radionuclides during operation of the reactor. A cascade impactor sampler was used to determine the size-activity distributions of radioactive aerosols in each of the sampling stations. Levels of a and b activities were determined based on a counting method using a liquid scintillation counter and smear tests. The total average mass fractions of fine particles (particle diameter dp < 1 mm) in all of the sampling stations were approximately 26.75 %, with the mean and standard deviation of 52.15 ± 19.75 mg/m3. The total average mass fractions of coarse particles were approximately 73.2%, with the mean and standard deviation of 71.34 ± 24.57 mg/m3. In addition to natural radionuclides, artificial radionuclides, such as 24Na, 91Sr, 131I, 133I, 103Ru, 82Br, and 140La, may be released into the reactor containment structure. Maximum activity was associated with accumulation-mode particles with diameters less than 400 nm. The results obtained from liquid scintillation counting suggested that the mean specific activity of alpha particles in fine and coarse-modes were 89.7 % and 10.26 %, respectively. The mean specific activity of beta particles in fine and coarse-modes were 81.15 % and 18.51 %, respectively. A large fraction of the radionuclides' mass concentration in the Tehran research reactor containment was associated with coarse-mode particles, in addition, a large fraction of the activity in the aerosol particles was associated with accumulation-mode particles