Systemic relations among the variables involved in occupational accidents of the nursing team in a psychiatric hospital.

BACKGROUND: The occupational activities carried out in hospital environments pose occupational risks to professionals. In psychiatric hospitals, due to the characteristics of the patients treated, professionals are also subjected to other risks, such as physical aggression. OBJECTIVE: This research aimed to identify the systemic context, highlighting the cause-and-effect relationships that culminate in occupational accidents that occurred with the nursing staff in a psychiatric hospital in Brazil. METHODS: The current study is an applied research and was divided into three stages. First, the collection of data related to the case study was made and accidents were analyzed and occupational hazards were identified. In the second stage, from the collected information, occupational safety indicators were defined. Lastly, in the third stage, the qualitative aspect of System Dynamics was applied to perform the systemic analysis and to identify how the different variables were related. RESULTS: The results showed that physical aggression was the main cause of accidents. Regarding safety indicators, while both the level of use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) by professionals and the high level of PPE protection were positive aspects, the level of training of professionals to use PPE was a negative aspect. The Causal Link Diagram (CLD) showed that the perception of risk influenced the level of use of PPE and those organizational measures influenced the accident rate. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the systemic analysis of the system dynamics can optimize the diagnostic process of occupational accidents in psychiatric hospitals, and especially help to identify the cause and effect among the variables involved.

Influence of extended working hours and physical recovery on absenteeism in the footwear industry from a system dynamics model.

Objectives. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are recurrent in the footwear industry, resulting in absenteeism. This study aimed to quantitatively analyze the influence of overtime work and physical recovery time on the occurrence of WMSD-related absenteeism using a system dynamics model. As ergonomic methods have limitations in quantitatively simulating the behavior of these relationships, the integration of computational modeling techniques has emerged as a methodological alternative to bridge this gap. Methods. An ergonomic work analysis (EWA) was developed in a production cell of a large company. A model of causal relationships (causal loop diagram) and a simulation model (flow and stock diagram) were then developed, where three scenarios for overtime and physical recovery time were analyzed. Results. Working an additional hour resulted in a 42% increase in physical overload, leading to 7.62 leave requests per year and 78.7 days of employee absenteeism. Increasing the physical recovery time by 15 min reduced the overload to 36.5%, resulting in 6.8 leave requests per year and 71.1 days of employee absenteeism. Conclusions. Properly managing excess workload and providing adequate physical recovery for professionals is necessary to mitigate the productivity impacts of absenteeism in the footwear industry.

Influence of environmental variables on students' cognitive performance in indoor higher education environments.

BACKGROUND: Educational environments can have environmental conditions that are incompatible with the needs of students, compromising their well-being and affecting their performance. OBJECTIVE: To identify the environmental variables that influence the performance of university students and measure this influence through an experiment in indoor environments. METHODS: The study applied an experimental methodology for three consecutive days in seven educational environments located in different regions of Brazil, measuring the environ-mental conditions, the students' perception of the environment, and their cognitive performance. The impact of environmental variables and environmental perception on student performance was analyzed using Generalized Linear Models and a Structural Equation Model. RESULTS: Students who took the test at air temperatures between 22.4°C and 24.7°C had a 74.20% chance of performing better than those outside this range. Air temperatures between 26.2°C and 29°C were associated with an 86% chance of taking less time to complete the test. High illuminance levels increased the chance of taking longer to answer the test by 41.7%. CONCLUSIONS: Three environmental variables (relative humidity, lighting and air temperature) and two perceptual dimensions (light and thermal perception) directly influence student performance.

Team Workload and Performance of Healthcare Workers with Musculoskeletal Symptoms.

In healthcare professionals, musculoskeletal complaints are the most frequent health disorders with the greatest potential for productivity losses. The teamwork developed by these professionals can be a coping strategy, but it can also be one more demand for the maintenance of performance. For this reason, this research aimed to investigate the relationship between team workload and performance in healthcare workers with different intensities of musculoskeletal symptoms. A survey was conducted with health professionals from 24 institutions of the Brazilian public health system, recruited by stratified probability sampling. Through non-hierarchical cluster analysis, the sample was allocated into three groups based on the intensity of musculoskeletal symptoms. We analyzed the approximation between the variables of "team workload" and "performance" of the groups formed in the previous phase through multiple correspondence analysis. In the group with higher musculoskeletal symptom scores, there was lower performance and a worse team workload. As the intensity of symptoms decreased, team workload and performance became closer variables in a two-dimensional space, indicating that the relationship between team workload and performance is improved in situations of low musculoskeletal symptom intensity.