Nilgün Ulutaşdemir

Effects of Occupational Health and Safety on Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors of Workers Employed in a Private Company in Turkey.

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that inappropriate working conditions and unsafe environments at construction sites, longer working hours, and inadequate workplaces adversely affect the health behaviors of workers. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of occupational health and safety (OHS) practices on healthy lifestyle behaviors of workers employed at a construction site of a private company in Gaziantep, Turkey. METHODS The sampling size of this descriptive study consisted of 400 employees working at the construction site between December 2014 and January 2015. In all, 341 employees still working or participating in the study during the period of this questionnaire study were included in the sampling. Data from the survey were derived from responses to questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics, OHS applications, health state, and working conditions, as well as to the questions in on the Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Scale (HLBS), under direct surveillance. FINDINGS Male workers with a mean age of 30.61 ± 8.68 years constituted the study population. Of the workers, 41.9% had a primary school education. The majority received professional and OHS training (65.7% and 79.2%, respectively). Although 83.9% reported using personal protective equipment (PPE), only 2.1% said they had experienced an occupational accident. Total mean score of HLBS scale was 116.91 ± 25.62 points. Workers who had positive thoughts about their jobs demonstrated healthy lifestyle behaviors (P = .0001). A positive direct correlation was detected between the training the workers received and the use of PPE (P = .0001). In all, 38.1% of the workers reported experiencing work stress at the time of the study. Mean HLBS scores of those experiencing work stress were lower than the scores for workers not experiencing stress (P < .05). CONCLUSION Receiving OHS and professional training and using of PPE favorably affect healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Occupational Risks of Health Professionals in Turkey as an Emerging Economy.

Abstract Background Health services are one of the work areas that contain important risks in terms of the occupational health and safety of the laborer. Professionals in various areas of health services encounter biological, chemical, physical, ergonomic, and psychosocial risks, particularly in hospitals. Objectives This study has been performed to evaluate the impacts of the occupational risks on health of health professionals in Turkey. Findings In Turkey, as an emerging economy, the history of studies on health professionals is not longstanding. There have been various regulations intended for the occupational health and safety of health professionals in line with the Regulation of the Provision on Patient and Staff Safety prepared in 2012. However, applications can differ from region to region, institution to institution, and person to person. Conclusions We believe that this review will lead health professionals to be aware of occupational risks and contribute to planning health services for health professionals.

Occupational Risks of Health Professionals

Health service is an important work area which can lead to important risks related to occupational health and safety (OHS) of employees. This book chapter is prepared to evaluate the effects of occupational risks on health and decrease the exposure to occu‐ pational risks of health professionals by searching national and international literatüre. Thus, awareness can be raised to define occupational risks and help planning services for health professionals. American National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has reported 29 kinds of physical, 25 kinds of chemical, biological 24 varieties, 10 and six kinds of ergonomic and psycho‐social hazards and risks. According to ILO, it has been reported that there is 1.25 trillion dollars loss each year due to the OHS prob‐ lems. In Turkey, the loss of only social security systems has been reported as approxi‐ mately 4 million Turkish Liras per year. Health professionals have work stress, and they suffer from the inconvenient design and the hazards within the workplace. The health of the health professionals affects the health of the community. Thus, it is important to decrease the exposure to occupational risks of health professionals and diligently work on this issue.

Analysis of the Patients Admitted to Emergency Department of a Private Hospital Due to Work Accidents

Objectıves: In this study, we aimed to evaluate the consequences and causes of work accidents admitted to emergency department of a hospital. Materials and Methods: The data of this study between 1 January to 31 December 2012, records of the patients apply to the emergency department of a private hospital in Gaziantep city because of work accidents were obtained retrospectively. Categorical data were expressed as number and percentage; The numerical measurements are expressed as mean and standard deviation. Our study is a cross-sectional, descriptive and retrospective study registry scan type. Results: During the study recorded 133 cases of work-related accidents, it was determined that constitute 0.2% of all applications in the emergency room. 131 employees are involved in crashes (98.5%) were male, 2 (1.5%) were female and the mean age were found to be 32.8 ± 10.8.Most accidents in May to 12.0%, up by 37.8% on Monday, up by 58.7% 08: 00-17: 00 were determined to occur. Work accidents in private businesses of 99.2%, occurred due to a fall of 52.6%, 61.7% in the upper extremity has been found to injury seen. Conclusion: According to the results of this researh, we found that as a consequence of work accidents the upper extremity of the most commonly injured body part. Additionally, many patients seen in the emergency department and outpatient treatment have been very few lifethreatening. In order to prevent accidents at work determining the actual size of the priorities and results of standardized and complete as to be recorded, monitored and should be reported. ( Sakarya Med J 2015, 5(4):193-198 )