Journal of Occupational

Background: The pistachio is a nut produced by about 20 species of shrub. Present-day studies show the health benefits of pistachio in preventing or treating diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancer, multiple sclerosis (MS), and erectile dysfunction.

Materials and Methods: MEDLINE / PubMed, and Google Scholar databases were searched using the keywords of Pistacia vera, Pistacio, chemical composition, anticancer, anti-inflammation, antidiabetic, and antioxydative. Relevant articles published in the last decade were identified and reviewed.

Results: The chemical composition (macronutrients, micronutrients) of pistachio and the main outcomes of treatment with pistachio species were categorized. The possible mechanisms of action of treatment with pistachio species are discussed in this article. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the beneficial effects of nuts such as pistachio on health, lipid profile, and diseases.

Conclusions: It is commonly believed that pistachio can be used in the prevention and treatment of diseases such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, coronary heart disease (CHD), cancer, inflammatory diseases, and MS. This study showed that nuts such as pistachio have many beneficial effects on health, and can be used for controlling different diseases. It seems that the pistachio may have anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-hyperlipidemia, and anti-proliferation effects and may be recommended for the prevention, improvement, or treatment of diseases such as diabetes, CVD, inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), cancer, and MS.

Background: Today, open-plan offices are among the most common work environments. Although the noise in these environments is usually below the standard level, it is one of the critical annoyance factors due to the nature of the mental work. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess noise effects on employee comfort and validate the Persian version of the assessment of noise effects on employee comfort in the open-plan office questionnaire in Iran.
Materials & Methods: The present descriptive study was conducted in an open-plan office in Shiraz, in 2021. We distributed questionnaires among 66 employees. Besides, we translated the questionnaire using the backward-forward technique, with the alpha coefficient and the intra-class correlation used to measure reliability. Finally, we used the Kappa, Spearman, and Mann-Whitney tests in SPSS V22.0 for data analysis.
Results: The validity of the questionnaire items was evaluated as acceptable using Kappa and Spearman's coefficients. Besides, the reliability of the questionnaire, using the ICC and the alpha coefficient, was 0.876 and 0.930, respectively. In this study, the employees were sensitive to noise, and their overall satisfaction with their physical conditions was moderate. In total, 47% of the employees considered the noise level of their working environment high and very high, and 35% considered it annoying or very annoying.
Conclusions: The findings of the present study showed that the questionnaire was an effective and reliable tool for noise annoyance assessments in office environments. Besides, we can use this tool to determine improvements required in open-plan offices and to evaluate the efficiency of these improvements.