Journal of Occupational

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common chronic diseases of the central nervous system. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of psychological training combined‎ with gradual muscular stress relaxation technique on QOL of patients with MS.

Materials and Methods: This triple-blind, controlled, clinical trial was conducted on 60 patients with MS who were members of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Yazd Province, Iran. The subjects were selected through convenience sampling method and with the consideration of the inclusion criteria. The participants were randomly divided into 2 groups of experimental (30 persons) and control (30 persons). The experimental group received 12 sessions of psychological training combined with gradual muscular stress relaxation technique (2 sessions per week), but the control group received no intervention. The data collection tools used consisted of a demographic characteristics form and the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-54 (MSQOL-54) ‎ questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed before, immediately after, and 3 months after the training. Data were analyzed using the statistical tests of student’s t-test, Pearson correlation, and repeated measures.

Results: QOL score in the experimental and control groups were 50.86 ± 14.78 and 56.25 ± 13.09 before the intervention (p=0.141), 68.49 ± 11.81 and 55.76 ± 13.37 immediately after the intervention, and 67.80 ± 11.90 and 55.06 ± 12.83 three months after the intervention, respectively. This difference was statistically significant (P <0.0010). Moreover, repeated measures statistical test showed a meaningful increase in QOL score in the experimental group in the 3 measurements (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: The implementation of psychological training intervention combined with gradual muscular stress relaxation method in patients with MS increases QOL. Therefore, it can be used as a beneficial intervention method for improving the QOL of patients with MS.

Background: Emotion plays an important role in adapting to life changes and stressful events. Difficulty regulating emotions is one of the problems drug abusers often face. The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of emotion regulation training on increasing self-efficacy and well-being in drug-dependent individuals.

Materials and Methods: The present study had a quasi-experimental design wherein pretest-posttest evaluations were applied using a control group and follow-up. The population was all substance abusers who referred to the Mehrvarzan addiction treatment clinic of Rafsanjan, Iran, in 2015. The statistical sample was composed of 30 available members.

Results: The results showed that the emotion regulation training has significant effectiveness in increasing self-efficacy and well-being in substance abusers. The effectiveness of the training on increasing well-being was persistent in the follow-up period, but increasing self-efficacy was not persistent. Thirty substance-dependent individuals were selected and then randomly assigned to the experiment and control groups. The experiment group received its training in eight 1.5-hour sessions. Analysis of variance with repeated measures was used to analyze the data. There was significant increase in self-efficacy (P < 0.01) and well-being (P < 0.01) after emotion regulation training.

Conclusions: Self-efficacy and well-being in drug-dependent individuals of this study were increased by emotion regulation training. We may conclude that the emotion regulation training can be applied alongside other therapies to treat drug abusers in addiction treatment clinic.

Background: Among important issues in physical education organizations, one could refer to paying attention to organizational health and identifying traumatic factors, including cognitive failure. Organizational failure could stem from organizational behavior. This study aims to examine the association between job stress and workload with cognitive failure with the mediating role of organizational climate among physical education staff in Ardabil province.
Materials and Methods: In this descriptive correlational study, the statistical community consisted of the physical education staff of Ardabil province in 2019, from whom 200 employees were selected by random sampling. The research tools included cognitive failure questionnaires about organizational climate, job stress, and workload. The data were analyzed by Pearson's correlation and path analysis using SPSS, and AMOS software.
Results: The results showed that the variables of job stress and workload had a significant positive association with cognitive failure. In addition, the research model had a good fit, and the indirect impact of these variables was confirmed by the mediating role of organizational climate (P <0.01).
Conclusion: we concluded cognitive failure at work, based on job stress and workload with the mediating role of organizational climate, could be predictable in the physical education staff of Ardabil province.
 

Background: Safety of contractors is one of the key safety challenges at construction. Safety training, as an essential prerequisite for achieving safety qualification certificates by contractors, could decrease accident rates in the construction. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of training construction contractors in safety issues in minimizing occupational accidents in a five-year period from 2015 to 2019.
Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study conducted in 2020, recruiting construction contractors. Thirty four contractors had the required safety qualification certificates (qualified), and 28 contractors did not have safety certificates (non-qualified). The analyzed data consisted of demographic information about construction contractors, documents of safety training, contractors’ safety qualification certificates, and data on reported occupational accidents. The desirability of safety training was assessed based on a Likert scale questionnaire. IBM SPSS software version 22 was used to analyze the data.
Results: The findings showed that the frequency of occupational accidents was significantly different between qualified and non-qualified contractors (p˂0.05). Occupational accidents decreased significantly in the qualified contractors after receiving safety training (p˂0.05). The duration of training and the training technique had the highest and lowest desirability, with 80.4% and 25.3%, respectively.
Conclusions: Although the findings indicated that safety training could have a significant positive effect on minimizing occupational accidents, improving the quantity and quality of safety training parameters, such as the use of up-to-date and applied techniques as well as various media could increase training efficiency.
 

Background: In the present era, training is one of the most complex tasks in the human resource management of organizations and also one of the factors in organizational productivity. This study was conducted to identify the dimensions and components of adequate training of nurses with an emphasis on psychological empowerment.
Materials and Methods: The present study is quantitative and qualitative research with a descriptive-exploratory design, and in terms of purpose, it is applied research. In the qualitative approach, to collect the necessary data, in-depth interviews were done. The sample included 30 cases consisting of university faculty members and senior managers of nurses. In the quantitative approach, 200 nurses were selected by simple random sampling. To analyze the data, Strauss and Corbin (1990) approach and fuzzy Delphi technique have been used.
Results:  Based on the findings, the main components of the adequacy of nurses' education include training, evaluation and psychological empowerment. The results showed that, among these three dimensions, the largest gap for optimizing the model was related to the psychological empowerment dimension, which can be filled by focusing on the sense of competence, sense of significance and sense of effectiveness of nurses.
Conclusion: The results showed that psychological empowerment by creating a sense of competence, meaningfulness, and effectiveness led to the participation of nurses in the training courses voluntarily and without coercion because they felt they needed to know more, and by psychological empowerment, they will be able to achieve the adequacy of training.

Background: Due to its chronic and debilitating nature, multiple sclerosis (MS) affects various psychological dimensions of patients’ life, thereby disturbing their adjustment to their situation and the environment. This study aimed to investigate effects of stress inoculation training (SIT) on general health and occupational adjustment strategies in MS patients.
Materials & Methods: In this educational trial, 40 people were selected by random sampling from all MS patients who referred to a special clinic in Rafsanjan (Kerman, Iran, 2018) and randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Dimensions of general health and adjustment strategies were evaluated before and after SIT by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and Bell Adjustment Inventory. The intervention group received SIT treatment weekly for seven sessions. Besides, data were analyzed using analysis of covariance.
Results: The participants' mean age was 34.92 ± 7.32 years. Regarding general health dimensions, the results showed that the mean scores of physical health (11.40 ± 30.8), anxiety (6.10 ± 1.94), social health (6.70 ± 1.56), and depression (5.80 ± 1.32) did not change significantly after SIT (p > 0.05). Concerning adjustment strategies, SIT was effective in improving occupational (13.6 ± 1.35) and emotional strategies (13.2±2.74) with p = 0.038 and p = 0.021, respectively.
Conclusion: According to the results, SIT was effective in improving occupational and emotional adjustment, yet it was not effective in improving the dimensions of public health. Moreover, it seems in order to improve general health in MS patients, various variables are essential along with stress control.