Psychosocial risk factors identification in Mexican workers and RGIII validation.

BACKGROUND: Since 2018, NOM-035-STPS-2018 has been applied in Mexico, focused on measuring psychosocial risk factors (PRFs) in workers and the Reference Guide III (RGIII) has been presented, however, research focused on its validation has been scarce, in very specific sectors and with small samples. OBJECTIVE: Determine the levels of PRFs of five work centers and reliability and validity aspects of RGIII. METHOD: The RGIII was applied to 1458 workers (806 women and 652 men) from five workplace in the industrial sector of Ensenada (Mexico), and the level of risk of the PRFs was analyzed, as well as their reliability and validity through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). RESULTS: The PRFs with medium, high and very high-risk levels are Workload, Lack of control over work and Workday. The RGIII presents adequate reliability with Cronbach's α, Alpha ordinal RHO and Omega of 0.93, 0.95 and 0.95, respectively. The EFA shows all five subscales maintain factor loadings greater than 0.43, although Leadership and relationships at work has better saturation values, and Work environment ended with only three items. The CFA indicates Leadership and work relationships with a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) goodness of fit index of 0.072. CONCLUSION: The RGIII allows the identification and evaluation of the level of risk of PRFs. It complies with sufficient internal consistency. It does not have a clear factorial structure, because it does not meet the minimum values of goodness-of-fit indexes that would allow confirming the structure proposed in RGIII.

Temperature Asymmetry Analysis between Left and Right Wrist with Sensory and Infrared Thermography.

This article reports a thermal analysis of the wrists to analyze the behavior and recovery of skin temperature after 20 min when performing a highly repetitive movement, and two thermography methods (sensory and infrared) and research groups were compared. The tests were carried out with 44 participants who performed a repetitive task for 10 min and integrated into two groups, of which 22 were trained workers from a maquiladora company and were analyzed with sensory thermography, and the other 22 were in the laboratory with infrared thermography with undergraduate students. The study area is the left and right hand, specifically the wrists. The proposed hypothesis is that people with some musculoskeletal problems have a decrease in temperature when starting repetitive tasks and thermal asymmetries, which measurements were recorded at 0, 10, 15, and 20 min after the task was finished. Findings indicate that the temperatures in both wrists behave similarly. The workers reached higher temperatures, and the centigrade degrees of asymmetry difference were also higher. The variable with influence on the temperature was fractured in the arm. After thermally analyzing the temperature behavior between the wrists of both hands, it is concluded that there is an increase in temperature after finishing a repetitive task, and it does not stabilize after 20 min. Both thermography methods observed that the asymmetries are greater than 0.5 °C, detecting the possible pathology of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Factor structure and measurement invariance of the psychosocial risk factors inventory of NOM-035-STPS-2018.

The primary objective of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Inventory for the Identification and Analysis of Psychosocial Risk Factors (IIA-PRF) of Reference Guide III proposed in NOM-035-STPS-2018. A total of 2,149 workers in Baja California, Mexico's industrial and education-government sectors, were administered an online inventory version. Preliminary analyses were performed, as well as a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) based on two models proposed by the standard itself: an eight-factor model (8-FM) and a four-factor model (4-FM). Likewise, based on the results and with the recommendations of the specialists, a threefactor model (3-FM) was proposed. In addition, nested model sequencing methods were subsequently applied to validate the invariance between the origin of the activity. The dimensionality of 3-FM was found to have adequate fit values according to a-priori established criteria. It is concluded that the IIAPRF does not have the reliability and validity parameters necessary to support interpretations, uses and consequences based on the theoretical structure established by NOM-035-STPS-2018 and that, although the 3-FM presents better reliability and validity indices, it is not invariant in terms of the origin of the activity. Finally, we discuss the implications and recommend reviewing and adjusting the design of the IIAPRF items to extend the measurement of invariance to other groups of relevance for decision making in the improvement of the work environment.