• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.398-405
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• 2023

Background: Starting from March 2020 until December 2021, different phases of Covid-19 pandemic have been identified in Italy, with several containing/lifting measures progressively enforced by the National government. In the present study, we investigate the change in occupational risk during the subsequent pandemic phases and we propose an estimate of the incidence of the cases by economic sector, based on the analysis of insurance claims for compensation for Covid-19. Methods: Covid-19 epidemiological data available for the general population and injury claims of workers covered by the Italian public insurance system in 2020-2021 were analyzed. Monthly Incidence Rate of Covid-19 compensation claims per 100,000 workers (MIRw) was calculated by the economic sector and compared with the same indicator for general population in different pandemic periods. Results: The distribution of Covid-19 MIRw by sector significantly changed during the pandemic related to both the strength of different waves and the mitigation/lifting strategies enforced. The level of occupational fraction was very high at the beginning phase of the pandemic, decreasing to 5% at the end of 2021. Healthcare and related services were continuously hit but the incidence was significantly decreasing in 2021 in all sectors, except for postal and courier activities in transportation and storage enterprises. Conclusion: The analysis of compensation claim data allowed to identify time trends for infection risk in different working sectors. The claim rates were highest for human health and social work activities but the distribution of risk among sectors was clearly influenced by the different stages of the pandemic.

• Journal of Korean Dental Hygiene Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2021

Background: The selection of an occupation is typically based on individuals' personalities and the characteristics of occupations, which significantly affect occupational consciousness. The present study aimed to enhance the occupational achievement level of and provide fundamental data for student counseling in order to develop competitive professional workers by understanding the occupational consciousness of freshmen and motivating them as dental hygienists with career development plans, as freshmen majoring in dental hygiene eventually play a significant role in the field of dentistry as dental hygienists. Methods: The surveys were distributed to 160 freshmen in the dental hygiene department and were subsequently collected. The data from 142 surveys were used for analysis, as 18 surveys were excluded due to insincere responses. The survey contents included questions related to major selection and satisfaction, including motives for selecting a dental hygiene major, prior knowledge on a dental hygiene major and a career as a dental hygienist, satisfaction level of the major, and reasons for dissatisfaction in cases if applicable, as well as questions related to occupational consciousness, including career prospects for dental hygienists, opinions on the occupation, and conditions of job selection. Results: High employment rate with good salary level ranked highest (43.7%) among motives to apply the dental hygiene major, followed by the desire to be a professional worker (21.1%) and recommendation by acquaintances. Of those who responded, 50.7% indicated a normal level of satisfaction with the major, and 69.9% responded that they had prior knowledge regarding the dental hygiene major and/or field of dental hygiene. These results may be due to youth unemployment and the occurrence of job preparation immediately after students enter university, which is a result of the difficulty in job seeking. In terms of career prospects, 48.6% of students responded with "growing a little bit," followed by "growing a lot" (28.9%), "no difference from now" (21.1%), and "other" (1.4%). Regarding opinions on the occupation, 65.5% responded that occupation was an tool with which to make and income or a living, 23.2% responded that occupation was for dreams and self-realization, and 11.3% responded that occupation was for success in life and maintaining social status. Regarding the conditions of job selection, the responses included that the workplace had good working conditions (39.4%), good interpersonal relationships (21.8%), and a higher salary (18.3%). This may reflect the change in work ethics among university students, according to the trend of the times. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, we found that educational guidance to enhance the level of satisfaction with the major, and career guidance to understand and apply the clear vision and long-term job security are necessary.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.269-276
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of self-esteem, resilience, and occupational self-efficacy among dental hygiene students. Data were collected a self reported structured questionnaire was administerd in convenience sample of 240 dental hygiene students and the final 208 participants participate. The survey included demographic factors, Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, resilience scale of CD-RISC, occupational self-efficacy scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient. There were positive correlation both occupational self-efficacy, resilience toward self-esteem. Resilience was correlated positively with occupational self-efficacy. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a dental hygienist curriculum and a comparative course program to improve self-esteem, major satisfaction and resilience in order to improve dental hygiene and student's occupational self-efficacy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2016

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate job stress and satisfaction by general characteristics of engineers industrial hygiene management, and we expect to provide basic data for strategic plan to strengthen the role related to the job. Methods: The subjects of this study was 184 persons who belong to the Korean Industrial Health Association, and 178 completed questionnaires were analyzed. The survey was conducted from June 29 to July 3, 2015. Conclusions: It is necessary to decrease the stress caused by additional job through increasing manpower and developing detailed manual according to the position and systematic job assignment considering general characteristics. Also, it is judged that job satisfaction should increase by vitalizing mentoring, club, small group activity in workplace for maintaining and improving good personal relationship with team members, and implementing incentive system to acknowledge and reward personal duty result.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.91-92
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• 2023

Members of the NZOHS attended the Korean Society of Occupational Health Conference held in Korea last February of 2023, and have continued to attend before that. In response to their invitation, I share the story of attending the NZOHS Conference held once every two years as part of international exchange, one of the goals of the current 17th executive team.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2005

Adsorption capacity for the charcoal were tasted in this study to verify the performance of them for the use of the sampling media in industrial hygiene field. Two set of experiments were conducted. The first experiment was to test performance of the tested charcoal tube that were assembled in the laboratory with the use of the GR grade charcoal. The other tests were investigate the adsorption capacity of the charcoal tested in this study and charcoals embedded in the commercial charcoal tubes. Known air concentration samples for benzene, toluene, and o-xylene were prepared by the dynamic chamber. 1. At low air concentration levels (0.1${\times}$TLV), there was no significant differences between the tested charcoal tubes and the SKC charcoal tubes. This implies that there is no defect with the adsorption capacity of the charcoal. 2. At high concentration with 60 minutes sampling, the breakthrough were found only in the tested charcoal while no breakthrough were shown in the SKC charcoal. 3. From the breakthrough tests for the charcoal, the micropore volume(Wo) were calculated by the curve fitting with the use of Dubinin/Radushkevich(D/R) adsorption isotherm equation. The calculated values were 0.687cc/g for SKC, 0.504cc/g for Sensidyne, and 0.419cc/g for the tested charcoal(Aldrich). 4. Adsorption capacities were obtained from the isotherm curves shown adsorption capacities at several levels of the challenge concentration. All range of the air concentration concerned in industrial hygiene, the SKC charcoal showed approximately two times of adsorption capacity compared to the tested charcoal.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1003-1013
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the differences of dental hygienists in how they view their work and how they rate their emotional labor and occupational stress. Gathering this data was an effort to provide information on how to increase occupational satisfaction and improve work environments for dental hygienists. Methods: We analyzed data collected from 178 dental hygienists. The dental hygienists were randomly selected by convenience sampling from dental hospitals. Results: Our results showed that pediatric hygienists had more negative responses in regard to their views on their work. As for emotional labor, dental hygienists from pediatric dental clinics experienced heavier emotional labor than those from general dental clinics. On the other hand, dental hygienists from general dental clinics suffered more from occupational stress than pediatric dental hygienists did. Conclusions: Given the findings of this study, effective and ideal programs that promote occupational satisfaction for dental hygienists should be prepared, and strategies should be developed to resolve emotional labor and improve their work environments, as well.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.471-483
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• 2012

Objectives : This study looked at the relationship between occupational stress and the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP), to evaluate the effect of occupational stress-related factors. Methods : Data was obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 260 local officials in Gangwondo. The research comprised three questions relating to subjective oral symptoms, an occupational stress measurement tool and an oral health impact factor which was composed of questions. The data was analysed using t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation and path analysis in Amos. Results : Occupational stress had a positive correlation to drinking frequency, Oral symptoms had a negative correlation. And drinking frequency, smoking amount and occupational stress had a positive correlation to oral symptoms. It denoted that drinking frequency, occupational stress and oral symptoms had a negative correlation to OHIP. The path model had an excellent goodness of fit (p=0.07, namely p>0.05). Five 'goodness-of-fit indices' of the model were all above 0.9: GFI=0.987, AGFI=0.952, NFI=0.902, IFI=0.939, CFI=0.934), and its RMSEA was 0.045. Occupational stress and oral symptoms had a firsthand impact on OHIP. In addition, it affected OHIP through the parameters of oral symptoms. Occupational stress exercised a firsthand influence on drinking frequency, drinking frequency exercised a firsthand influence on smoking amount. Smoking amount had a firsthand impact on oral symptoms. Conclusions: Oral health education programs for the development of an improved oral hygiene environment through reduction in drinking and smoking also need to focus on relieving stress by improving workplace culture. In addition, due to good communication is required to reduce occupational stress caused by interpersonal conflict.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.5304-5313
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of self-efficacy and occupational value in major satisfaction in dental hygiene students. The subjects were 236 dental hygiene students in Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheongnam-do. They filled out self-reported questionnaires that consisted of general characteristics of subject, self-efficacy, occupational value, and major satisfaction. Data were analyzed using SPSS WIN 18.0 and Amos. V18. Sophomore's curriculum satisfaction and perceive satisfaction were higher than freshman's. Group of high self-efficacy was higher than average and low groups in major satisfaction. Group of internal occupational value was higher than group of external and neutral occupational value in curriculum satisfaction, perception satisfaction, and total major satisfaction. The most effective factor on major satisfaction of dental hygiene students was self-efficacy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.173-186
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• 1999

To utilize diffuse sampling of formaldehyde in air, a new sampler was designed. A glass fiber filter was impegnated with 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine(DNP) and phosphoric acid and mounted 37mm cassette. The formaldehyde vapor was sampled in the dynamic chamber and measured by high performance liquid chromatograph and compared with solid sorbent tube. The results were as follows ; 1. The desorption efficiencies of diffusive sampler between 97.0% and 100%. 2. the sampling rate is constant as in $58{\sim}61.8m{\ell}/min$ when sampling times are between 120 and 360 min. 3. There was a significant relationship between concentrations of diffusive samples and active samples with the coefficient of determination(R2) of 0.92. 4. Desorbed amount of formaldehyde diffusive sampler was increased by high relative humidity. 5. Wheth diffusive samplers were stored at room temperature or at refrigerator there was no statistically significant difference in the accuracy of result. 6. When the diffusive samplers, which collected formaldehyde vapor, were exposed to clean air for three hours, there was no significant loss of formaldehyde due to reverse diffusion. In conclusion, this study suggest that developed diffusive samplers will be a reasonable substitute for the solid sorbent tube for sampling formaldehyde and practical comparative study of developed diffusive sampler should be performed at workplaces of manufacturing industry.