Video display terminal use and limitations according to italian legislative decree: occupational and forensic perspective.

Abstract: In this paper, the authors conduct a review inherent in the use of video display units considering the laws currently in force in Italy, with emphasis on critical legislative and operational issues. Video Display Terminal (VDTs) are today an essential element in almost all work environments, from offices where they represent the fundamental work tool to production environments where they are indispensable for carrying out control functions (command stations, quantity management and flows, etc.) or for design work. The risk due to VDTs is one of the factors considered by the Italian Legislative Decree 81/08, so its assessment is part of the employer's obligations and at the same time requires health surveillance by the occupational physician. The new workstations have certainly not reduced visual postural demands, but they have changed them, opening the door to new disor-ders and imposing greater flexibility on the activity of the occupational physician, who often cannot limit himself to an annual inspection of the workplace. The aim of this work is to examine the current critical issues and future prospects of ergophthalmology.

Work-related stress costs assessment: a narrative review.

Background: Work-related stress represents a major health problem within most work environments and its rates of incidence are increasing as time goes by. Work-related stress is both detrimental for workers' psychophysical health and costly to societies. Besides the direct medical costs that represent only a fraction of the total cost, data is either lacking or unreliable to properly estimate the economic impact of occupational stress. Methods: This paper reviews international studies and organisational reports in order to highlight occupational stress economic impact on an international level. Results: The study shows that work-related stress imposes an undeniable financial burden on worldwide societies. Findings show estimations that vary from € 54 million up to € 280 billion depending on the country. Results suggest that productivity loss due to absenteeism and presenteeism has a greater economic impact compared to the medical expenses. Discussion: Generally speaking, the costs of work-related stress, also according to Europe, impact both on employers and welfare sy-stems, and from the point of view of prevention we should work hard to improve stress-management strategies. Conclusions: The discussion around this matter should be emphasized in order to properly address occupational stress and make implications for job redesign under the perspective that promoting and protecting workers' mental well-being will benefit the individual and allow cost containment benefitting the collective as well.

Total Worker Health®: knowledge of a sample of Occupational Physicians and Prevention and Protection Service Managers.

Background: In the workplace, it is increasingly important to promote interventions to improve the work environment that can combine compliance with regulations related to worker health and safety protection with health promotion interventions. The objective of our study is to investigate the status of the implementation of various health management measures through questionnaires submitted to Occupational Physicians (OPs) and Prevention and Protection Service Managers (PPSMs). Methods: This study was conducted between September 2022 and November 2022. Healthcare professionals were invited to voluntarily answer the questions, administered through a Google form, of a standardized questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha=0.887) based on the study made by Hoge et al. (2019): the first part collected demographic information and the other four were relating to the state of implementation of interventions attributable to the Total Worker Health® approach. Results: 89 OPs and PPSMs were involved. The univariate and multivariate analysis shows that, overall, women and PPSMs have a higher degree of dissatisfaction related to various health management measures within companies; most workers are fairly satisfied with health and safety protection in the workplace; finally, according to healthcare professionals, aspects of primary prevention and work management/organization would need to be improved. Conclusions: This study shows that in Italian companies there is often no full application of Total Worker Health® principles. The affirmation of this approach, awareness should be raised, first and foremost, among employers, but also among prevention figures and consultants about all the benefits of Total Worker Health®: one among all, an 'economic' advantage.

Assessment of workplace bullying in Italy by INAIL: forensic and occupational medicine considerations.

Abstract: The Authors, after a broad examination of the operating methods of inail (National Institute for Accident Insurance at Work) for the correct assessment and indentification of workplace bullying, carried out a comparative evaluation on the various diagnostic tests in the forensic psychiatric field for this occupational problem.

Contact tracing as an essential prevention tool for the spreading of COVID-19 among healthcare workers.

Abstract: Healthcare workers, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been universally recognized as especially susceptible, with infection risks higher than the general population. Therefore, it is important to apply infection prevention and control measures in healthcare institutions to limit infections associated with the provision of healthcare services. In this contest, contact tracing, in fact, is an essential public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, with active case finding and testing, and physical distancing. Globally, new weekly cases and deaths are decreased, but WHO emphasizes that cases and deaths should be interpreted with caution because several countries have been progressively changing COVID-19 testing strategies, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests performed and consequently lower numbers of cases detected. Health personnel, therefore, work at a high-risk department and this has been associated with a 2.13 times higher risk of COVID-19 compared to the general departments of any hospital and, if the healthcare workers had inability to continue working and if there was the possibility of hospitals turning into sources of infection, it could be an interruption in healthcare services. A coordination with the system of surveillance is important that remains in the hospital in order to fight COVID-19 and help restructure the response in the light of detected transmission and guarantee safe hospital care.