Introduction. The goal of this work is to investigate the impact of recreational fishing on health and well-being on a sample population. Specifically, the study’s perspective consists in verifying how much a population of amateur fishermen has, with respect to a comparison group of non-fishermen, documentable variables relating to conditions of well-being. Secondly, in relation to this, the study aims in the future to hypothesize a benefit in terms of both direct costs (hospitalization, drugs, medical assistance, etc.) and indirect costs (premature mortality, long-term disability, reduced quality of life). Methods. The survey provided for the sending of a questionnaire via e-mail with an online response to members of FIPSAS, the Italian Federation of Sport Fishing and Underwater Activities, and in a small part to a sample group of non-fishermen, registered with SIMFER, the Italian Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which promoted this survey. The questionnaire used reproduces the experience already made by Professor Alexandra McManus, Director of the Center of Excellence Science Seafood & Health (CESSH), Faculty of Health Sciences of the Curtin University of Perth in Western Australia, who gave us authorization for its use after having validated it and adapted it to the Italian reality. Results and Conclusions. From the comparative analyses, it emerged that the sample extracted from the population of active fishermen on average declares to: have a better state of health, to carry out more physical activity, to be subjected less frequently to negative moods, to have a better quality of sleep and a greater ability to concentrate than the sample extracted from the population of non-fishermen / inactive fishermen.
A literature review was performed to highlight which work-related diseases express sex/gender differences in health outcomes and focus the main limits of studies in this field. The research, carried out on PubMed by specific search string, identified 4828 articles (1997-2017 period) of which 381 are eligible for review (4-22%, depending on the disease). Among them, 68% reported sex/gender differences in health outcomes, which in most cases appear to be due to different exposure and/or work segregation rather than to biological differences. However, few studies place this assessment among the research goals and results are almost never discussed and hypothesis are seldom formulated about any observed differences. It seems necessary to use research methodologies and study design that can detect and explain the described complexity and useful in defining appropriate preventive strategies.
Background. Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at risk of becoming infected and, in turn, becoming contagious. The aim of our study was to assess the prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) among HCWs and to identify associated factors, with the goal of defining the specific residual risk within work environments. Methods. The data from the health surveillance of HCWs between January 2017 and January 2020 were collected at the Policlinico Umberto I Hospital in Rome and used to assess the prevalence of LTBI through purified protein derivative (PPD) and interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) tests (QuantiFERON®-TB Gold). Results. Out of 3,102 HCWs, the PPD was positive in 431 subjects (13.9%); however, out of 479 operators undergoing TB Gold, 42.8% were positive. The risk of testing positive for LTBI increased with age, particularly in the nursing profession and, in subjects over 50, among technicians. Conclusions. Our study identified a relatively high prevalence of LTBI, confirming that the risk among HCWs is higher than in the general population. Furthermore, the PPD test, despite having low specificity, can be considered a first-level screening tool in Italian hospitals, with positive results requiring confirmation by IGRA tests.
Background. The present study aimed to analyze the levels of work-related stress and perceived well-being among employees of cooperative credit banks (BCCs) in the Veneto region (Italy). The risk of stress was assessed using Karasek’s Job Demand-Control (JDC) model. Methods. An anonymous online questionnaire was administered via email to workers registered with trade unions, covering 91% of the total workers. The study collected socio-demographic and work-related information between April and June 2021 using the following validated questionnaires: the Bank Employee Stress Test 8 (BEST8), the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) by Karasek, the Short-Form (SF)-12 Health Survey, and the Positivity Scale (PS). A logistic regression analysis was used to assess the significant associations between quality of life (QoL) and potential stressors. Results. A total of 1,506 questionnaires were collected, with a response rate of 38%. Fifty-eight percent of the participants were male, with an average age of 45 years (standard deviation [SD]=8.2). Regarding QoL, the average physical component score (PCS) was 52.3 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 51.9-52.7), while the mental component score (MCS) was 35.9 (95% CI: 35.5-36.6), which is significantly lower than the average for the Italian population, typically ranging from 48 to 51.7. According to the JCQ, the mean decision latitude (DL) reported by participants was 65.7, and the mean job demand (JD) was 38.5. Overall, 24.3% of the workers were found to be in a state of distress. The regression model showed that distress was significantly associated with anxiety over unmet budget targets due to potential relocation or role changes, difficulty adapting to a fast-paced work environment, moral conflict with sales or consultation demands, and pressure from colleagues or superiors to be more flexible. The model demonstrated a goodness-of-fit of 46%. Conclusions. The “contextual stressors” identified in this study appear to be linked to organizational culture, career development opportunities, decision-making autonomy, and the level of control given to employees. On the other hand, the “content-related stressors” are connected to the intensity and pace of work. The QoL among workers was significantly lower than the national average. From an epidemiological standpoint, these findings offer valuable insights for future studies aimed at better understanding the causal relationship between stressors and health outcomes, and they may also encourage the implementation of health prevention and stress management interventions.
Background. The term intoxication refers to the disease, acute or chronic, caused by harmful substances or those made harmful due to factors such as high concentration or impaired immune defenses. These substances can cause reversible or irreversible changes in tissues and organs, including oncogenic and mutagenic effects. In response to the need for treatment and prevention services for intoxication and chemical impacts, poison control centers (PCCs) have emerged worldwide. This study aimed to verify the link between the type of intoxication detected by the PCC of the Policlinico Umberto I of Rome and occupational exposure. Methods. The study employed a retrospective case-control design. Cases and controls were identified from the archive of the Clinical Toxicology Unit – Poison Control and Anti-Drug Center at Policlinico Umberto I, which included individuals who had contacted the PCC between 2009 and 2018. The case group comprised patients whose intoxication occurred at the workplace and/or was accidental and work-related. Controls were randomly selected from the PCC database using EpiCalc2000, excluding those who met the case criteria. Results. A total of 448 patients were included (202 cases, 246 controls). The most involved agents were drugs (44.7% controls, 3.5% cases), caustic cleaning products (19.7% controls, 27.7% cases), fuels, solvents, paints, oils (2.5% controls, 22.8% cases), and pesticides (5.3% controls, 12.9% cases). Ingestion was the primary exposure route among cases (68.6%), while inhalation prevailed among controls (46.5%). Multivariate analysis revealed that occupational intoxication was strongly associated with exposure to other toxic substances (OR 55.19), fuels, solvents, paints, oils (OR 48.36), and pesticides (OR 12.61). Conversely, the association with risk factors such as drugs (OR 0.06), substances of abuse (OR 0.10), and mushrooms (OR 0.10) was found to be protective. Conclusions. The primary routes of exposure to toxic substances in the workplace were inhalation in approximately half of the cases and ingestion in just over a quarter of the cases. The substances most commonly involved were caustic cleaning products and fuels, solvents, paints, and oils. These results may facilitate the development of specific prevention strategies.
Although the debate among the scientific community is still open to identify the parameters which better represent engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) toxicity, numerous methodological approaches to assess workers exposure to airborne ENMs have been proposed. The measurement of exposure to ENMs is a critical step in the analysis of the potential risks for workers and the distinction of engineered nano-objects from the background is highly important to understand the contribution of specific sources. In 2015, OECD reviewed the major published strategies and promoted a harmonized three-tiered approach to measure and assess the airborne exposure to engineered nano-objects in the workplace, with the aim also to balance costs and effectiveness of investigation efforts. In this framework this study proposes the preliminary results of occupational exposure measurements conducted in both industrial and laboratory workplaces in which different types of nanmaterials were used. The results of this study will be useful to validate the proposed exposure measurement strategy.
The world is changing rapidly, even work. The main new features of the labor market relate mainly to the supremacy of consumption over production, the ease with which you can access the information, to the space conquered by the ideas and knowledge and, most recently, the sharing of experiences, which led to the sense making the organizational business culture. These deep changes are grafted into organizational models that gradually try to satisfy the demands of the market. By Taylor-Fordist model to the Japanese based on "just in time" many things have changed, but it has changed above all the meaning that is attributed to human nature. In summary, the historic transition is that once business owners reminded to employees: "You're not paid to think", but now urge them thus: "The quality is up to you." The route taken by the first to the second statement is the meaning of the genetic changes in work and workers today.
In the last decade there have been several developments in European Union in recognizing the relevance of psychosocial risks, particularly as regard to work-related stress, resulting in novelties at policy level and in the development of practical solutions for managing such risk. The current national legislative framework on occupational health and safety establishes the obligation of assessing work-related stress risk in companies, in accordance to the European Framework Agreement of 2004, and provides the minimum legal requirements. Research experiences in this field contributed to develop and increase the existing methodological processes, also to verify the effectiveness and to identify needs related to sectors and context particularly at risk. Among the others, findings from the Project "Monitoring and intervention for improving the assessment and management of work-related stress" contributed to the development of management models and intervention strategies to face and prevent the work-related stress risk.
Although a growing portion of european working population is facing with psycho-social risks, only about 30% of public and private institution identify individual cases and are implementing actions aimed to their prevention and management. In addition to the formal evaluation of work-related stress, it is crucial to identify individual cases in order to support people to face them efficiently. The ambulatory of Occupational Medicine jointly instituted by the University of Rome Tor Vergata and by the Policlinico Tor Vergata di Roma (having an agreement with the National Health System) offers to patients a multi-disciplinary approach including psychiatric and psychological evaluation in addition to the evaluation of the occupational setting. Since 2010, 264 patient have been visited, with a growing percentage in recent years of cases related to inter-personal conflicts as well as other forms of organizational constraints and some recent situations which could be linked to strain (which is a peculiar organizational consequence which may cause personal damage owing to the creation of psychological subalternity). Therefore, the psychological pathway given by the ambulatory seems increasingly useful in order to preserve the occupational relationship, at least in the cases in which it is not definitively compromised. The occupational physician has a primary role in identifying cases in which an in-depth evaluation is needed, in encouraging the sharing of negative experiences and in correctly evaluating the clinical picture.
The essay envisages the topic of psycological risks (PSRs) not only from a strictly legal perspective but also from a more specifically political one. In this reconstruction, the author highlights how the key question underlying the development of the EU regulative system in the field of PSRs does not concern the actual existence of a solid protection basis at hard law level89/391/Eec directive - but rather to the effectiveness of such protection and to the functionality of soft law in ensuring its implementation and detailing its content. The system effects are measured on the transposition at national level of the Agreement of 2007 on harassment and violence in the workplace. As a final result, it revealing several important structural tensions as well as the shortcomings of the Social European project.
Nanoparticles toxicity is associated with cardiovascular diseases (CDs). Although epidemiological studies confirmed such link, they did not prove a direct causation on cardiac tissue. Normotensive and hypertensive (SHR) rats were exposed to titanium dioxide (TiO,) and diesel exhaust particles (DEP) from Euro3 and Euro4 derived-engines. We explored the interaction between NPs and in-vivo/in-vitro cardiac tissue and we determined the effect on electro-mechanical performance by evaluating genetic, morphological, functional and toxicological alterations. We observed a direct contamination of cardiac tissue by tracheallyinstilled NPs, correlated with structural remodeling, ROS, DNA damaged, modulation of ECGs and arrhythmogenesis. Such conditions are further aggravated in normotensive animal acutely exposed to Euro4-DEP and in SHR repeatedly exposed to 1i0,-NPs. Such NPs produce transient nanopores (≤50 nm), which causes membrane leakage and action potential reduction. Our proposed approaches show a direct involvement of NPs linked to CDs, by establishing a novel arrhythmogenic mechanism.
The pursuit of the best working conditions and of a rewarding job are pivotal elements in care process cause working satisfaction plays a main role to further the positive treatments outcome. Anonymous questionnaires were administered to 59 subjects (10 nurses and 49 health workers) operating in two different institutions, an Alzheimer centre and a nursing home, in order to describe their personal sensation about work's gratification. Our research shows up, in both institutions, a satisfying perception about working conditions, learning and educational opportunities, teamwork and individual skills recognition. Patients' behavioural disorders and hard relationship with families are source of strain and stress for both groups. The rest home staff complain about the unsuitable environmental conditions which make difficult the managing of particular minor behavioural disorders like wonderings, escapes and falls. Elements as salary and balance between work and free time are relevant for both groups but not adequate to fulfill their expectations if work recognition and individual daily efforts appreciation are lacking.
Background: Occupational Health Nurses have gradually changed their role. Objectives: To provide a national and international overview concerning the Occupational Health Nurse's role and to evaluate which are the regulatory/professional elements currently in force in Italy that may permit to better structure and develop Occupational Health Nurse's technical/scientific knowledges. Methods: Literature and regulatory texts review in Italy and abroad; on sight research in some public and private Occupational Health services. Results: Occupational Health Nurses' role abroad is well established and it's primarily aimed to preventive health interventions and health promotions. In Italy, on the contrary, the role of nurses in Occupational Health is almost always accessory in the implementation of health surveillance and workers' health education. This fact seems to be the result of the absence of a specific training course for those professionals, that could better define their legal profile.Conclusions: We verified the need that the training curricula of the Nursing Degree and of the Post-graduate Degree in Nursing and Midwifery Sciences give more space for teaching specific Occupational Health skills. It seems useful to propose the activation of specific post-graduate training courses for nurses who wish to focus specifically their professional activity in our disciplinary field.
Background. Cutaneous tests and specific IgE are used in the diagnosis of allergy due to betalactams, although drug administration at therapeutic dosage is considered gold standard in drug allergy. Objectives. The diagnostic approach in symptomatic workers is more critical when they are exposed because of work, unlike reactions to drug in case of therapy. There is not a general consensus about markers in workers occupationally exposed to drugs. Indeed, basophil activation test (BAT) is a new and promising laboratory tool, particularly useful to test intermediate molecules involved in the production. In this article we show our experience on the health surveillance of workers exposed to beta lactams and intermediate molecule (7-ZACA) in a pharmaceutical industry. Methods. We studied 15 workers divided into 3 groups: 5 exposed and symptomatic (group A), 5 exposed and asymptomatic (group B), 5 non exposed and asymptomatic (group C). Results. BAT was positive for 7-ZACA in three subjects of group A, and in one subject of group B and one of group C. There was e concordance between clinical history, respiratory symptoms, and results of texts. It was possible to determine allergic nature of symptoms and sensitization in a preclinical phase, correctly discriminating symptoms related to irritants from theallergic ones. Conclusions. BAT, a simple and quick diagnostic procedure if compared to challenge, can be used as a useful and practical tool by occupational doctors forprevention measures, evaluation of ability to a specific job and reallocation of workers.
The working posture is part of the risk factors for the development of muscle-skeletal disorders. Compared to postural problems of the trunk and upper limbs, those related to the lower limbs have been so far undervalued in the context of preventive medicine and ergonomics. The risk assessment tools for the lower limbs posture are inhomogeneous and incomplete. The classification of postures, the quantification of the risk, the correlation with organizational and individual aspects, and interventions for the prevention and management of the risk are aspects yet to be explored.
Among the main causes of absence from work, with direct and indirect social costs, there are the low back pain that represent the most frequent complaint in health professionals. From 8 to 16% of the nursing staff and care is damaged skeletal muscle such as to limit the eligibility to work. In the Campania Region has introduced a structural adjustment program of the institutions which provide social and health care in order to improve the "practicality" and "usability" of space for guests and operators. The implementation of this program in the Azienda Sanitaria Locale Napoli 2 North, and especially in our district 39, has been the main targets of optimizing the organization of work and reducing the percentage of low back pain. The evaluation of this program has shown that compliance with ergonomic principles leads to the prevention of psychological and physical disorders related to a bad drawing of organized labor.
In this study the Authors intended to describe and provide a critical remark of the necessary assessments for the selection of the most appropriate personal protective equipment. This selection has been made with reference to the calculation methods specified in the International Standard UNI EN ISO 9612 and UNI EN 458.
Background: Although numerous studies have been done on the topic of job satisfaction, as regards the Italian research, the construction of specific psychometric instruments is lacking. Objectives: The present paper is aimed to develop a scale to measure job satisfaction referring to our cultural context. Methods: Participants were 222 workers (36.5% males, 63.5% females) with an average age of 38.39 years (SD = 10.91). The formulated items were selected from a large item pool on the basis of the evaluation by a group of expert judges, and the item analysis procedure. In order to establish test validity, the following instruments were also administered: Occupational Stress Indicator, Satisfaction With Life Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and Beck Depression Inventory. Results: Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses highlighted a 6-factor structure. Those factors were responsible for 51.30% of the total variance. Reliability analyses indicated satisfying internal consistency (ranging from a = 73 to a = .86). Construct validity was supported by results obtained calculating correlations with the theoretically associated variables. Conclusions: Our findings suggest promising psychometric properties for the presented measure. The instrument could be used in specific programs developed to promote well-being conditions in work settings.
The operational role of the occupational health physician in the assessment and management of health risks related to night work. Night work, in the last 30-40 years, has been extended to almost all areas of employment. The potential effects on workers' health - related to the disruption of circadian rhythms - are now well defined and studied in the Literature. All issues about the protection of safety and health for night workers are governed by the Italian Legislative Decree no. 66/2003 and subsequent amendments. The management of night work hasn't been included into the main Law on Occupational Safety and Health (Italian Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 and subsequent amendments) and a coordination between the two disciplines is desirable. The occupational health physician, as a global consultant for the protection of all health issues into a company, has to evaluate the potential effects of night work on health, both individually and as a group of workers. In this way, the physician may use either traditional tools (history, physical examination, blood tests) or innovative tools (questionnaires, health promotion programs, interventions on shift schedules). In the management of night work is useful to employ schedules that respect both psycho-physical integrity and social welfare of workers and the needs of the production. The occupational health physician plays a significant role in information and training of workers, both individually and as a group of workers, and in the organization of health promotion programs (whit a voluntary participation by the workers).
Introduction. Elderly care workers have a higher risk than other professionals of developing burnout. Despite literature has highlighted the methodological advantage resulting from an integration of subjective and objective measures of stressors, only few studies have investigated job stress and burnout in the Italian elderly care context using this kind of assessment. The aims of this study were: a) to investigate the level of stress and burnout and their organizational sources in a sample of eldercare workers by means of subjective and objective tools, and b) to compare the stress and burnout levels between health care staff and nursing aides employed in a residential home for the elderly.Methods. The sample of the study included the totality of the elderly workers employed in a residential home for the elderly (N=49; response rate: 100%). The Maslach Burnout Inventory-GS and the Areas of Worklife Scale were used for the subjective assessment of burnout and organizational risk factors. A check list of objective indicators was used for the objective assessment of job stress.Results. Results from the self-report questionnaires showed high levels of exhaustion and a perception of high workload and unfairness for the total sample. Objective parameters of job stress risk were biomechanical overload, dealing with suffering people and the risk of work-related violence. Nursing aides had greater risk of burnout and reported a greater number of objective sources of stress, compared to health care workers. Conclusions. This exploratory study supports the use of both subjective and objective method for the assessment of job stress risk as the most comprehensive approach for the implementation of preventive and corrective interventions.
