scholarly journals Online survey among maritime pilots: job-related stress and strain and the effects on their work ability

Author(s):  
Marcus Oldenburg ◽  
Jan Herzog ◽  
Filip Barbarewicz ◽  
Volker Harth ◽  
Hans-Joachim Jensen

Abstract Background Maritime pilots often navigate ships through challenging waterways. The required 24 h standby rotation system (ROS) poses a stressful working situation. This study aims to describe the current job-related stress and strain among maritime pilots and the effects on their work ability, taking into account the different rotation systems. Methods Within a cross-sectional survey, pilots of all German pilots’ associations were asked to complete an online questionnaire. The 1-week ROS (port pilots) was compared with the 4-month ROS (sea and canal pilots). The pilots’ subjective perception of stress and strain was assessed using an established ship-specific questionnaire. Daily sleepiness and work ability were examined respectively using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and the Work Ability Index (WAI). Results The study group consisted of 401 male German pilots with an average age of 48.5 years (participation rate 46.9%). More than 50% of the pilots evaluated irregular working hours as the main stressor in their job. 79.8% of the pilots (especially 4-month ROS) experienced high psychological demands in their workplace. 83.3% stated having regularly neglected their private obligations due to job assignments. Pilots from the 4-month ROS experienced insufficiently predictable free time and long operation times at a stretch as stressors (p < 0.001 and p = 0.037). Elevated daily sleepiness was found in 41.9% of the pilots. The overall evaluation of the WAI questionnaire showed good to very good work ability at 77.3%. Additionally, no significant differences in the daily sleepiness or the work ability were observed between the pilots of the different two ROS. Conclusions Due to their subjectively higher job-related mental demands, their disturbed work-life balance, and their long operation times at a stretch, it is likely that pilots from the 4-month ROS have significantly higher job stress compared to those in the 1-week ROS. However, this does not lead to more sleepiness or reduced work ability, which suggests that the pilots of this ROS are highly adapted to their working situation. Nevertheless, intervention measures with shortened ROS amongst sea and canal pilots’ associations should be tested in respect of benefit, practicability and acceptance by the pilots.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yuan ◽  
Chunying Shen ◽  
Chengnan Wang ◽  
Gang Shen ◽  
Bing Han

Background: Drug interactions are the most common preventable cause of adverse drug reaction, which may result in drug toxicity or undesired therapeutic effect with harmful outcomes to patients. Given the rising use of combination therapies, the main objectives of this study were to estimate the degree to which physicians can identify potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) correctly and to describe the common source of information used by physicians when they need to check PDDIs.Methods: A cross-sectional survey utilizing a self-administered online questionnaire was conducted among physicians in China. Participants were asked to classify 20 drug pairs as “no interaction,” “may be used together with monitoring,” “contraindication,” and “not sure.” We also collected data on the physician's source of information and altitude toward the PDDIs. An ordinary least square regression model was performed to investigate the potential predictors of PDDI knowledge.Results: Eligible questionnaires were obtained from 618 physicians. The respondents classified correctly 6.7 out of 20 drug pairs, or 33.4% of the drug interactions investigated. The number of drug pairs recognized by respondents was ranged from 0 to 16. The percentage of physicians who recognized specific drug pairs ranged from 8.3% for no interactions between conjugated estrogens and raloxifene, to 64.0% for the interaction between dopamine and phenytoin. When the respondents want to check PDDI information, the most commonly used source of information was package inserts (n = 572, 92.6%), followed by the Internet or mobile Apps (n = 424, 68.6%), consultation with clinical pharmacists (n = 384, 62.1%), medical textbooks (n = 374, 60.5%), knowledge base in Chinese (n = 283, 45.8%), and other physicians (n = 366, 59.2%). In the multiple regression analysis, the significant predictors of a higher number of recognized drug pairs were years of practice and altitudes toward PDDIs.Conclusion: In this online survey accessing physician's ability to detect PDDIs, less than half of the drug pairs were recognized, indicating unsatisfactory level of knowledge about the clinically significant drug interactions. Continuing education and accessible electronic database can help physicians detecting PDDIs and improve drug safety.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Fatma Lestari ◽  
Abdul Kadir ◽  
Muhammad Idham ◽  
Fahrul Azwar ◽  
Ganis Ramadhany ◽  
...  

People’s behaviors can affect the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Public behaviors, including proper personal hygiene and healthy life practices, the use of appropriate masks, and the application of good disinfectants, have an important role in human health and protection towards prevention and control of COVID-19 spread. This study aims to perform a survey of public behavior and best practices related to COVID-19 prevention and control among Indonesian communities. A cross-sectional study was designed to collect information using an online survey. Respondents were gathered from 34 provinces in Indonesia through the Indonesia National Safety and Health Council network and Universities network. Respondents voluntarily submitted their response to a predesigned online questionnaire. The collected data was then analyzed using SPSS 24.0. A total of 771 respondent subjects (male 386; female 385) were recruited. The results show that 96% of participants implement positive behavior of personal hygiene, including wearing a mask when going outside their house, and almost 67.3% of respondents sprayed a disinfectant in their house. The majority of participants hold a door handle (37.2%) and desk (28.1%) at a frequency of more than six times a day. There were 8.2% of participants implementing good personal hygiene, including hand-washing at least once a day and maximum of more than six times after going to the toilet. At-risk behaviors were conducted by respondents in which they touched part of their face at a frequency of once during an hour. It was identified that males are less likely to perform better hand hygiene as opposed to females. In conclusion, the study showed that positive behavior of personal hygiene related to COVID-19 has been implemented among Indonesian communities. This result suggests that positive behavior based on community-based prevention and control needs to be continually maintained in order to prevent and control COVID-19 spread.


Author(s):  
Samuel Imathiu

A descriptive, cross-sectional survey was conducted using an online questionnaire to assess food safety knowledge, beliefs and attitudes among Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology undergraduate students. A total of 329 learners consented to participate in the study. The results revealed that overall respondents answered 46.2% of the food safety knowledge questions correctly with similar scores across the five colleges (Agriculture and Natural Resources 47.4%, Human Resource and Development 45.2%, Engineering and Technology 46.7%, Health Sciences 45.4%, and Pure and Applied Sciences 46.5%). Over 70% of respondents seemed to have positive beliefs and attitudes in most of the food safety beliefs and attitudes statements. A 78.7% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that food safety knowledge is important to them while 72.1% and 77.7% of the respondents were willing to learn how to make their food safe to eat, and how to prevent food poisoning from occurring respectively. Only a small proportion (3.3%) of respondents felt that food safety was not their responsibility. The areas of most concern in food safety knowledge were in regard to cross-contamination and temperature control/food preservation. The proportions of correct responses on; “Imagine that your electricity went off and the meat, chicken, and/or seafood in your freezer thawed and felt warm. To prevent food poisoning, what should you do?”, “A refrigerator has three shelves, on which shelf do you think raw meat should be placed?” and “What should be done if the leftovers are still not eaten completely?” were 7.3%, 24% and 24.6% respectively. These results show that students who participated in this study generally had unsatisfactory food safety knowledge regardless of their study category. There is therefore a need to offer food safety education/training to all learners, perhaps in short courses forms and not only on theory, but also on practical food safety aspects to bridge the food safety information gap.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aldebarán Toledo-Fernández ◽  
Diana Betancourt-Ocampo ◽  
Héctor Romo-Parra ◽  
Ernesto Reyes-Zamorano ◽  
Alejandro González-González

The objectives of this study were to describe severity of psychological distress (event-related stress, anxiety, and depression) during the second stage of COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico, and to explore associations between the indicators of psychological distress, sociodemographic characteristics and specific concerns about COVID-19. This report serves as a baseline measure of a longitudinal project to evaluate progression of psychological distress across stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico. An online survey was conducted in the State of Mexico from April 8th -18th, 2020, in a sample of men and women who are beneficiaries of a welfare institution in the region. Variables were measured with the Impact of Event Scale-6, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, General Anxiety Disoder-7, and a questionnaire of concerns about COVID-19. A total of 5974 participants were analyzed. Moderate levels of psychological distress (with 23.6% of participants meeting significant event-related stress, but mild levels of depression and anxiety) were found, as well as high values in all concerns about COVID-19, especially regarding financial disruption, worsening of local security and concern of a family member becoming infected. These concerns associated mild-to-moderately with the indicators of psychological distress. Higher values of event-related distress were found in women, individuals with higher educational attainment and those with any current high-risk medical diagnosis, though the effect sizes were mild. Though psychological distress and concerns about COVID-19 have reached significant levels during the pandemic in Mexico, overall, they have not yet reached dysfunctional levels.


Author(s):  
Elyse R. Grossman ◽  
Sara E. Benjamin-Neelon ◽  
Susan Sonnenschein

Emerging but limited evidence suggests that alcohol consumption has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed: (1) whether drinking behaviors changed during the pandemic; and, (2) how those changes were impacted by COVID-19-related stress. We conducted a cross-sectional online survey with a convenience sample of U.S. adults over 21 years in May 2020. We conducted adjusted linear regressions to assess COVID-19 stress and alcohol consumption, adjusting for gender, race, ethnicity, age, and household income. A total of 832 responded: 84% female, 85% White, and 72% ages 26–49. Participants reported consuming 26.8 alcohol drinks on 12.2 of the past 30 days. One-third of participants (34.1%) reported binge drinking and 7.0% reported extreme binge drinking. Participants who experienced COVID-19-related stress (versus not) reported consuming more drinks (β = 4.7; CI (0.2, 9.1); p = 0.040) and a greater number of days drinking (β = 2.4; CI (0.6, 4.1); p = 0.007). Additionally, 60% reported increased drinking but 13% reported decreased drinking, compared to pre-COVID-19. Reasons for increased drinking included increased stress (45.7%), increased alcohol availability (34.4%), and boredom (30.1%). Participants who reported being stressed by the pandemic consumed more drinks over a greater number of days, which raises concerns from both an individual and public health perspective.


Author(s):  
Francesco Bellanti ◽  
Aurelio Lo Buglio ◽  
Erika Capuano ◽  
Michał Dobrakowski ◽  
Aleksandra Kasperczyk ◽  
...  

Safety of healthcare workers in hospitals is a major concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being exposed for several working hours per day to infected patients, nurses dealing with COVID-19 face several issues that lead to physical/psychological breakdown. This study focused on burnout and its associated factors in nurses working in an Italian University Hospital during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. We designed a web-based cross-sectional study addressed to nurses working at the University Hospital in Foggia, Italy. The online questionnaire was organized in sections aimed at collecting demographic and occupational variables, including the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OBI). Two hundred and ninety-three nurses agreed to participate. According to MBI, we reported moderate/high emotional exhaustion in 76.5%, depersonalization in 50.2%, and personal gratification in 54.6% of participants. COVID-19-related burnout measured by OBI resulted medium/high in 89.1% of participants. Among demographic and occupational factors, a multivariate regression analysis identified emotional support, consideration of leaving job, and workload as predictive of burnout in nurses. In conclusion, this study suggests that the improvement of employer and family support to nurses, as well as reduction of workload and job-related stress, would contribute to reducing burnout in nurses during COVID-19 pandemics.


Author(s):  
Marcus Oldenburg ◽  
Dennis Wilken ◽  
Ralf Wegner ◽  
Bernd Poschadel ◽  
Xaver Baur

2021 ◽  
Vol 01 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-89
Author(s):  
Maher Khdour

Job satisfaction is considered one of the essential factors contributing to a person’s motivation, productivity and overall well-being, the present study aimes to assess job satisfaction and job-related stress levels among pharmacists that are currently registered and practicing in Palestine. we report a cross-sectional survey, including measures of satisfaction and stress (Health Professions Stress Inventory) questionnaire. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-tests and one way ANOVAs. The significance level was set at P<0.05. Out of 694 questionnaires distributed, 576 were returned; 14 were not completed and excluded from analysis giving a net of 554 (79.8%) participants. Most of the respondents in the analysis sample were female (58.3%) working in community pharmacies (73.6%). The level of job satisfaction was 58.5%, the variables that contributed to the statistically significant, di"erences in the degree of job satisfaction were the region (p<0.001) and the monthly income (p<0.001). The t-tests and ANOVA analyses revealed that hospital pharmacists were the least likely to respond that job conflicts with family responsibility as a source of stress compared with community pharmacists (3.11 vs 2.14; p<0.001) and least likely scores in the professional recognition domain (3.21 vs. 2.79; p =0.04), respectively. Other job stressors like excessive work load, lack of promotion opportunities and poor physician pharmacists’ relationship have also been reported. Work life of pharmacists should be enhanced in order to improve their motivation and ability, because failure to reduce stress among workers puts both pharmacists and patients at risk


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-85
Author(s):  
Nadia Saleem ◽  

Background: The lockdown strategy has been implemented globally to contain the spread of current pandemic of COVID-19. Educational institutes around the globe are facing challenges and online learning is being carried out to avoid face to face contact during lockdown. Students have to adapt entirely new methods of learning through information technology. Objective: To assess the satisfaction level of health science students with online learning and use of internet during Covid-19 lock down in Punjab. Study Design: Cross-sectional survey. Settings: The data was collected from different institutes of Punjab using an online survey. Duration: Three months from May 2020 to July 2020. Methodology: A convenient sample of sample (N) 357 undergraduate medical students were included based on the response submitted through online questionnaire. Volunteer undergraduate students of MBBS, BDS, DPT, and Pharm D were included. The level of satisfaction was measure using Online Learning/Distance Education Questionnaire. Data was evaluated by SPSS version 22. Frequency tables and percentages was used to measure categorical variables. Results: 41 were males and 316 Females with mean age of 20.5±8.5. 15.6% Most of them had taken more than 03 courses online on computer for educational purpose. More than half students responded that they were motivated to attend online lectures. 23.52 % thought that they can pass any course is on internet-based study. 27.45% considered online and in physical classes as same. The access of internet was not issue for 50.98% students and 37.53% think that course can be completed online. Conclusion: The students were satisfied from online education during this time of transition of conventional classes to online classes. More than half of them felt no issue of internet and 37% think that course can be completed in this mode of education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (Supplement_7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maitreyi Patel ◽  
Naveed Kirmani

Abstract Aims We aim to assess the surgeons’ awareness of mesh characteristics by way of an online survey. Methods A cross sectional survey of surgeons routinely performing groin hernia repairs was conducted across five NHS hospitals using an online questionnaire. Surgeon’s experience in groin hernia repair was taken in account. The data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Descriptive statistics was used. Results 37 surgeons responded to the survey.6 surgeons had more than 20 years of experience. 8 (21.62%) performed &gt;50 hernia repairs annually. When compared with years of experience, knowledge of material was 100% with &gt;10 years experience. Knowledge of tensile strength was 50% in those with &gt; 20 years experience, while 83% of respondents with &gt;20 years experience were aware of the weight and pore size of the mesh they used. In comparison with the number of groin hernia repairs done annually, all respondents performing &gt;50 repairs knew the material they used. Amongst these respondents, knowledge of tensile strength, weight and pore size was 38%, 75% and 63% respectively. Conclusions Our study suggests that the level of knowledge regarding mesh is inadequate among surgeons, falling short of the minimum expected of surgeons performing groin hernia repair.


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