• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.147-151
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• 2014

Background: Agriculture ranks among the most dangerous trades worldwide. There is, however, still a lack of knowledge on nonfatal injuries in agriculture. The aim of this study was to describe the nature and occurrence of nonfatal injuries in farmers in two counties in central Norway. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 7,004 farmers in Norway. We asked for information about the respondents and the farm, whether the farmer had had work-related injuries on the farm during the past 12 months, and details about the incidence and seriousness of the injury. Results: A total of 2,699 respondents gave a response rate of 42%. Of the respondents, 249 (9.2%) reported one or more work-related injuries. The most usual cause of injury involved an animal, and >75% of these happened inside the outbuilding. Among these, 17.5% had a consequence of sick leave or a more serious result. When all the accidents were analyzed by stepwise logistic regression, only the variables: works alone, has >3,500 stipulated working hours at the farm, and the type of production were statistical significant explanatory variables for having an injury. Conclusion: Incorporating safety aspects to a greater extend in the design and construction of outbuildings would make a substantial contribution to injury prevention in agriculture.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.202-210
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• 2006

Objectives : Although dairy farming ranks as the industry with the highest injury incidence rate, the information on the injuries is limited in Gyeonggi Province. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of farm accidents and injuries. Methods : The occurrence of accidents among dairy farmers due to work-related injuries were investigated from 2,799 dairy farms of Seoul Dairy Cooperative. Among 171 total accidents, the number of accidents for human was 108. In this study, the 108 human accidents were investigated. Results : The results of this study were as follows; First, the injury rate in dairy farming was 1.60%. Second, the highest injury in dairy farm was occurred in the spring and at 6~8 p.m. Third, a variety of injuries occurred when doing the milking. Fourth, cow, machinery and falls were among the most common causes. Fifth, the most common injuries was fracture (52.8%) and the most common body part of injuries were torso (25.9%), legs (22.2%) and hand (18.5%). Sixth, 45% of the accidents indicated the lost work time from 4 weeks to 3 months. Recommendations: With the results, it is recommended that practical control methods to prevent accidents in dairy farming, for instance, wearing adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) or designing a moderate floor of works etc. be studied and developed.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.135-140
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• 2022

Background: Coal mining is a hazardous industry. The purpose of the study is to identify the nature of occupational injuries and diseases among coal miners and to determine the factors that affect the rate of injury and duration of time loss from work. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted using accepted workers' compensation claims data of 30,390 Australian coal miners between July 2003 and June 2017. Results: Musculoskeletal and fracture conditions accounted for approximately 60% of claims in all occupational groups. Cox regression analysis showed that older age and female gender were significant predictors of longer time off work. Injury types and occupations were associated with work time loss: mental health conditions, and machine operators and drivers had significantly longer durations of time off work. Conclusion: Future research can further address how these factors led to longer time off work so that coal industry regulators, employers, and healthcare providers can target interventions more effectively to these at-risk workers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2001

Objectives : To elucidate the transient effects on the risk of occupational injuries as acute events and establish so alternative proposal. Methods : The study population comprised a total of 302 workers randomly selected from applications for occupational injury compensation reported to the Inchon local labor office from January 1. 1999 to December 31. A case-crossover design, where each case serves its own control, was applied to this study. Through a telephone interview, workers provided useful data concerning five job related stressful events such as company transfer, work load change, overtime work, exchange duty, and work-part transfer. They were asked whether there were stressful events within a week of the occurrence of injury and the degree of stress. Exposure status from one year prior was used as control information. In the end, the data provided by 158 of selected persons was used for the analysis based on the quality of the data provided by the participants. A conditional logistic regression was used to discover the transient effects on the risk of occupational injuries as acute events. Results : The effects a company transfer and work load change on occupational injury was statistically significant on the risk of occupational Injuries as an acute event(RR=5.5, 95% CI=2.501-12.428; RR=3.1, 95% CI=1.963-5.017, respectively). Other stressful events were found to elevate the risk factor for the occurrence of occupational jujury, but were not significant. Conclusions : Our results suggested that transient stressful events elevated the risk factor for the occurrence of occupational injury.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.306-313
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the factors associated with work related injuries of nurses in small and medium sized hospitals. Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with nurses in eight hospitals from October 2007 to January 2008. A questionnaire was designed to collect information on nurses' work related injuries, and individual and job related characteristics. The response rate was 65.1%. Data from 294 nurses were analyzed. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with work related injuries. Result: Of the 294 nurses, 19.1% (n=56) responded as having at least one injury during their job performance. The logistic regression analysis revealed that the significant factors influencing work related injuries were job satisfaction, stress recognition, and hospital's location. Nurses with a higher job satisfaction were less likely to experience work related injuries (OR=0.58). Nurses with a higher stress recognition (OR=2.57) and those working at hospitals in metropolitan cities (OR=3.28) were more likely to experience work related injuries. Conclusions: The result of this study indicated that a substantial proportion of nurses in small and medium sized hospitals had experienced injuries related to nursing job. Interventions to prevent work related injuries among nurses should take into account the job satisfaction, stress recognition, and hospital characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Physical Therapy Association
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.5-17
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• 1992

Depression in Spinal Cord Injury Patients Kang, Soon Hee, M.Ed., R.P.T. Dept. of Rehabilitation Medicine, Kyung-Hee University Medical Center Depressions have the potential to affect adversely the rehabilitation of patients with spi-nal cord iniury. The present study examined depression, functional independence, and demographic and medical characteristics for 49 spinal cord injury(SCI) patients. This investigation involved the administration of the Beck Depression Inventory, the Modified Barthel Index, and aquestionnaire consisted of 14 items, The results were as follows .1. Compared to normal subjects, SCI patients had significantly higher BDI scores.2. When the cut-off point of HDI scores was assumed 21, 26.1% of normal subjeets and 75.5% of SCI patients appeared to be depressed. Depression in SCT patients were not related with age, sex, marital status, injury evel, severity, duration, pain, functional independence and medical charge. Depression in SCI patients were related with education level, economic level, age at injury, motivation. Depression in normal subjects were related with age, education level, economic level, but not related with sex, marital status. There were significant differences at 30 items of BDI between normal subjects and SCI patients. The items were as fellows . 1 sadness, 2 pessimism, 3 failure, 4 dissat-isfaction, 5 guilt, 6 punishment. 7 self-dislike 9 suicidal, 10 crying, 11 irritability, 12withdrawl, 13 indecisive, 14 self-image, IS work inhibition, 16 insomnia, 17 fatigue,18 anorexia, 19 weight loss, 20 hypochondria, 21 libido loss.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.223-235
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was done to investigate the prevalence of job stress and musculoskeletal symptoms, and to identify the factors that affect work-related musculoskeletal symptoms of the 119 Emergency medical technicians (EMT). Method: From August 26 to September 10, 2010, the data were obtained from 456 EMT working in Daejeon city or Choongnam province. For data analysis, descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression were performed using SAS version 9.1. Results: Physical environment, job demand, interpersonal conflict, and occupational climate were stressful to 119 EMT. The prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms of female EMT was higher than those of the male EMT's. After gender and age were adjusted, there ware significant relationships between musculoskeletal symptoms and some risk factors including occupational class, hours of intensive musculoskeletal use, previous injury or work-related injury, physical burden, and job stress. Overall, a higher degree of job stress increased musculoskeletal symptoms. Conclusion: Job stress is a major cause of musculoskeletal symptoms. To prevent and manage musculoskeletal disease of 119 EMT, there is a need to develop a management program for musculoskeletal symptoms to reduce occupational stress, considering gender differences.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.61-66
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• 2006

Awkward work postures in workshop highly affect on work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs). Especially, in automobiles assembly process, these awkward work postures of workers may cause serious injury and illness. This study is to compare the performance among the evaluation tools which can measure the work-loads caused by the awkward work postures in automobiles assemble process. RULA, REBA and TVAL(Toyota Verification of Assembly Line) are used as the evaluation tools. The 85 jobs selected in the automobiles assembly process are applied to the three tools and their performances are analyzed after the evaluation of the work-load in each job. Through various measures of performance such as statistical test, DUNCAN test, regression test etc., the tendencies and characteristics among them are analyzed in detail.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.15-31
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• 2000

The aim was to evaluate the prevailing ergonomic and psychosocial conditions regarding low back injury in an automobile assembly system. This study consisted of two parts. In the first part of the study, analytic biomechanical model and NIOSH guidelines were applied to evaluate risk levels of low back injury for automobile assembly jobs. Total of 246 workers were analysed. There were 20 jobs having greater back compressive forces than 300kg at L5/S1. Also, there were 44 jobs over Action Limit with respect to 1981 NIOSH guidelines. This might in part be explained by the ergonomic conditions of the company analysed generally being good, with a relatively low duration of 'combined' extreme work posture. The relationship between psychosocial factors and low back injury was examined in the second part of the study. It has recently been recognized that overall reaction to working conditions was influenced by a range of factors, some of which were physical and some psychosocial. The psychosocial environment surrounding the work place may contribute to the perception of risk and eventual ill-health. A battery of questionnaires concerning the psychosocial stress based on PWI(Psychosocial Well-being Index) and musculoskeletal pain symptoms at low back was completed by 246 workers at the same plant. Results showed that 207 out 246 workers experienced the symptoms and 27 workers were diagnosed as patients. Two groups(low stressed, high stressed) based on PWI score had no significant relationships with both symptoms and results of diagnosis. However, sensitivities for symptoms and diagnosis by PWI were 91.3% and 92.6% respectively. Finally, relationships between physical work load and psychosocial stress were analysed. Specifically, some postural factors {vertical deviation angle of forearm, horizontal deviation angle of upperarm, vertical deviation angle of thigh, etc) were highly correlated with psychosocial stress. The results illustrated that PWI scores were associated with some physical workloads. However, psychosocial stress levels couldn't be well related with the pain symptom as well as the actual incidence of low back injury since pain or discomfort regarding low back injury were more complex than that of other musculoskeletal disorders.

• 월간산업보건
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• s.264
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• pp.46-52
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• 2010