• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2008

The purpose of this survey was to identify ergonomic risk factors of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and understand the current MSD risk status in the wholesale/retail industry. The field survey was conducted at 120 wholesale/retail establishments, and the cause of MSD occurred from the national industrial accident statistics by the Ministry of Labor in 2006 was analyzed in terms of company size, a term of work, job title, and cause of occurrence. The numbers of disasters on MSD were 602 which were included 432 disasters who met with low back pain by incident. A checklist was developed by KOSHA to use for the field survey. A total of 419 tasks were identified at the 120 establishments surveyed. The highest frequency was Task 2(45%) which was mostly observed in repetitive work (e.g. displaying, scanning, cutting or wrapping of goods). The second and third were Task 9(34%) and Task 8(14%) which were identified in manual materials handling (e.g. lifting, lowering, carrying or stocking of goods). The results suggest that the three Tasks should be first considered for the control in wholesale/retail industry and that exposure to MSD risk factors in those Tasks should be primarily addressed in order to reduce MSD risk in that industry.

• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.65-69
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• 2009

Purpose: Recently incidence of VDT syndrome has gradually increased as extensive use of computers. VDT syndrome reported by VDT workers include musculoskeletal disorder, neuropsychiatric disoders and eye symptoms such as eye strain, tired eyes, irritation and blurred vision. The environmental factors of VDT syndrome include electromagnetic waves, size, brightness and lighting of computer screen, height of a monitor and a worktable, working hours, kind of task, distance between screen and workers, indoor humidity and temperature, indoor air contamination and ventilation. In this study, we investigated the environmental factors related to body symptoms and health effects included in VDT syndrome. Methods: Study subjects were total 120 persons (54 male, 66 female) with age from 19 to 28. We surveyed the body symptoms and physical discomfort when doing an activity in a short distance such as reading book or paper, computer work. The questionnaire included main body symptoms, self-consciousness symptoms of eye, satisfaction of working environment, pain of the wrist when using keyboard and mouse. Results: Most of people (70%) felt physical pain from long time work of computer, paper, electrical apparatus. They mainly complained pain of neck and low back (57.1%), eye (45.2%) and head (31%). With the environmental factors, 78.3% of the subjects complaint pain of eye from inappropriate illumination. Most of the symptoms included 'eye fatigue'(38.3%), 'dryness of eye'(31.9%) and 'blurred vision'(23.7%). Subjects in this study complained discomfort of their chairs and most of them experienced pain in the wrist when using keyboard or mouse. Conclusions: When people use electrical apparatus or work with paper, people would get their eye fatigue and feeling of physical fatigue because of not harmonizing various environmental factors such as light, space, posture, worktable with theirselves. Therefore, workers should develop preventive method such as self-control of adequate break time to avoid fatigue while VDT work. Work environment should be changed to ergonomic design for optimal visual environment to prevent musculoskeletal disorder through constant research.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.177-185
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• 1998

The purposes of this study were to investigate the effects of farming in greenhouses with respect to subjective fatigue symptoms among farmers and the degree of symptoms. The study compared 176 green-house farmers with 216 open field farmers using a subjective fatigue symptoms rating scale developed by the Industrial Research Institute of Fatigue, Japanese Association for industrial Hygiene. 1. With respect to complaint rates of the subjective fatigue symptoms, the results indicated that greenhouse farmers have, in order of severity, high degrees of low back pain, difficulty in collecting thoughts, and apt to forget. 2. With respect to cumulative scores of fatigue symptoms, the results indicated that both groups of farmers exhibited a lack of attentiveness and a high degree of dullness and sleepiness(category I), body projection of fatigue(category II), and difficulty in concentration(category III). 3. With respect to general characteristics, it was found that the degrees of subjective fatigue symptoms were found to be higher among females, people with lower educational levels, and the elderly, regardless of the group. 4. With respect to work related factors, farmers with more years of experiences were found to have higher degrees of subjective fatigue symptoms, except for open field farmers with less than nine years experience. Both groups of farmers were found to have high degrees of subjective fatigue symptoms when working less than eight hours a day and less than six months a year. 5. With respect to health habits, for people who get less than eight hours of sleep per day exhibited higher fatigue scores than people who get more than eight hours. People who do not smoke and drink also exhibited higher fatigue scores than people who smoke and drink. 6. The results of multiple regression showed that the risk factors related to the subjective fatigue symptoms of farmers in the greenhouse group were ages, levels of education, sex and for the comparison group, were sex. years of farming, and hours of sleep. The R-square were 12.5% in the greenhouse group and 12.1% in the comparison son group. The differences between the greenhouse and open field farmers in the degrees of fatigue symptoms were found not to be statistically significant even if the working conditions of the greenhouse farmers were poor. This may be attributed to non-work related factors, i.e., social, economical, and psychological factors among greenhouse farmers.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.133-137
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• 2016

The aims of this study were to analyze the Korean fire fighters' applications for the public worker's compensation between 2011 and 2013 and to suggest a feasible solution for prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The Korean Ministry of Public Safety and Security provided the complete list of fire fighters' application from January 2011 to December 2013. 510 applicants with chief complaint of musculoskeletal disorders were screened out of all 1596 applicants. Male applicants were 92%. Fire fighters in their early 40's applied most frequently, followed by those in early 30's. Musculoskeletal disorders of fire fighters were reported most frequently in May and June. Regionally, Seoul had most applicants and Jeonbuk showed the highest prevalence. Low back was the most frequently reported body part followed by the knee. Ligament was insured most frequently followed by vertebral disc and bone. The fire fighter's injury occurred while fire extinguish (38.3%), emergency medical service (37.7%), rescue (12.4%), and other duties. Result of this study suggests further investigation on the large variation in regional prevalence and on the injury mechanism of musculoskeletal disorders especially during the fire extinguish and emergency medical service.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.17-32
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• 1995

The purpose of this study is to promote health for young female workers. It is based on questionnaires collected from 215 female workers in Incheon area. This study includes health condition (fatigue scores), occupational disease, knowledge of abused drugs and the actual condition of drug use. The results are summerized as follows: - $47.4\%$ visited their health center and were treated with diseases like cold and headache $(34.9\%)$, gastroenteric disease $(6.5\%)$, trauma $(7.9\%)$ and chronic disease such as diabetes and hypertension $(3.3\%)$ - $44.7\%$ received regular health education and $4.7\%$ among them received education on abused drugs. - $20.5\%$ were suffering from work related diseases such as gastroenteric disease, headache, trauma, repiratory disease, skin problem, arthritis, low back pain, shortsightness and tuberculosis. - Total mean fatigue score as an indication of health status was $9.0\pm5.4$ points out of 30 points. Physical mean score (group I) was $3.92\pm2.2$ points and psychological mean score was $2.5\pm2.3$ points and neurosensory mean score was $2.6\pm2.1$ points out of each 10 points. - They recognized analgesics $(55.0\%)$ and the next are laxatives $(49.8\%)$, inhalants $(40.0\%)$, narcotics $(24.2\%)$, stimulants $(24.0\%)$, antihistamines$(5.9\%)$, diuretics $(3.0\%)$, tranquilizer $(2.4\%)$ and sedatives $(1.4\%)$ - They used analgesics $(37.2\%)$ the most and then laxatives $(6.0\%)$, stimulants$(5.6\%)$, diuretics $(1.9\%)$, antihistamines$(0.5\%)$, And nobody used tranquilizer, sedatives, narcotics and inhalant. - The relationship between career, drug abuse education, health center utilization and and the actual condition of drug using was examined. The longer the career and the more educated with drug abuse, the less drug used. And those who utilized health center rarely used more drugs. - The relationship between career, health center utilization, the score of fatigue and use of analgesics was also examined. Those group who have a longer career above 3 years and the group who have never used health center used more analgesics. And the group of fatigue score above 11.0 points used a little more analgesics than the other group. These results indicate that analgesics are the most frequent used drugs among female workers. Those analgesics such as geborin, penzal, saridon, aspirin, tyrenol should be used properly. These basic data is submitted for the education and consultation which are carried out by industrial nurses for promoting health of industrial workers.