Medical professionals work in a constantly stressful environment. The nature of the profession requires routine extended working hours, but little is known about the effect of long working hours on selective physiological measures. A cross-sectional feasibility study was conducted from 1 October 2017 until 30 April 2018 on medical doctors in a tertiary health centre in northwest Malaysia. There was a total of 55 study participants recruited. The overall systolic blood pressure (SBP) was highest after working 24-hour stretch (p=0.006) and the overall diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were highest after working for 33 hours in a single stretch, at the end of on call rotation (p
In September 2011 at the 19th World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in Istanbul, I met a Turkish prominent scholar and we exchanged our ideas on the topic of work safety. Turkey, as you well know, is one of the Muslim majority countries and Muslims comprise 99% of the whole population. And I have heard that in Turkey, a fatalism based on its faith is so pervasive among people that Turkey has a lot of cases on injuries and deaths at the workplace. In such a fatalism, an accident would be accepted as a fate which their God has already decided, because of God being in control of everything.
Maritime transportation is very important for coastal state country like Malaysia. However, as having the busiest straits in the world, Malaysia is continuously exposed to the risk of marine spill. The nation had experienced around 30 marine spill incidents since 1976 to the present. The main contributor of marine spill is ship’s accident and in term of category of accident, collision had contributed the most. In term of type of substance that mostly spilled by ships is highly persistence crude oil. The management of marine spill response of Malaysia is applying the three tiers system which is base on the area and scale of the spill. The basis of establishing the marine response service is in accordance with OPRC, which incorporated into the national environmental law. With the three tiers of response system, Malaysia is equipped with arsenal of marine spill response and control equipments. However, with the present magnitude of threat, the current capacities of equipments are insufficient. Nevertheless, the possibility of full magnitude of marine spill is unlikely due to the safety features incorporated into the design of the ships and FSO/FPSO. In term of claim and compensation for marine spill incident, Malaysia is applying the two layers of compensation under the CLC 1992 Protocol and FUND 1992 Protocol. Therefore, Malaysia is ready in various aspects of marine spill response and control.
The energy price increased significantly since the early 1970’s and it shows the pattern of all over the world.
According to the estimation of International Energy Agency (IEA), 53% global energy consumption will be increased
by 2030, with 70% of the growth in demand coming from developing countries. Malaysia is one of the most developing
countries among ASEAN countries next to Singapore, with GDP of US$15,400 per capita (PPP basis), and steady
GDP growth of 4.6% in 2009. Malaysia as a developing country focuses on the energy efficiency approach. At this
moment a lot of number of fire and electrical incident more towards overload current and the issues has been faced
trough out the year. This paper highlight the issue on how to avoid the overload current by introducing the method
establish by Energy Commission. The star (*) rating will help us to estimate the current use and the energy efficiency
approach by calculate the current load. The data collected from home appliances are the very basic information rather
than predict in a large scale as industrial and commercial building since the tariff also different in the category. The
equipment such as amp meter, volt meter and the current load data logger will help the current consumption in every
home appliances and it will show the direct reading as well. The issue on electrical safety should be response by
consumer to prevent safety and health risk.
Introduction: Workers in hospitals are exposed to various occupational hazards such as high level disinfectants (HLD).
Disinfection is an essential component of the endoscope reprocessing. In the Endoscopy Unit of Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
Succindialdehyde (SA) is used as the disinfectant for endoscope reprocessing. SA has properties that are similar to formaldehyde
in regard to contact allergies and toxicity. The purpose of this case study is to describe the occurrence of work related symptoms
(WRS), the proper use of personal protective attire (PPE) and the need of pre-employment health enquiries for those exposed to SA.
Methodology: This was a cross sectional case study. Twenty eight gastrointestinal assistants (GIA) from the thirty two exposed staff
working with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Endoscopy Unit, who fulfilled the study criteria, were given a modified Respiratory
Surveillance Questionnaire. This questionnaireis used as the health surveillance tool for the staff exposed to the occupational
respiratory hazard by the Occupational Health Unit, University of Edinburgh. Results: Most of the GIAs complained of headache
(85.7%), skin irritations (60.7%) followed by 57.1% watery eyes, wheeziness and runny nose. Majority (92.9%) of the GIAs wore
personal protective equipment (PPE) during the disinfection procedure. Pre-employment enquiries regarding asthma, skin and
mucosal sensitivity problems and lung function were not made to any of the GIAs. Only 14.3% of them do annual health surveillances.
Conclusion: Most of the GIAs, 92.9% experienced at least one WRS despite wearing PPE. Staff exposed to the chemical disinfectants
should wear proper PPE and do annual health surveillances. By practising this, we may avoid WRS and treat the staff accordingly.
Precast concrete panel is one of the Industrial Building System (IBS) components currently used in modern construction industry, especially, in a highly populated urban area in Malaysia, owing to its cost and time efficiency in a project completion. However, the constraints lie in Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) when IBS workers manually lift the concrete panel repeatedly. The aim of this study is to analyze the recommended weight limit (RWL), lifting index (LI) and physiological experience among workers while lifting precast concrete panel with 3300mm x 600mm size and compressive strength of 40MPa. The methods involved include a survey through the Nordic questionnaires, interview sessions, NIOSH lifting index calculation, recommended work limit calculation, Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) and video recording. The results yielded the MSDs problem. The guidelines of recommended weight limit and lifting index are produced. They benefit workers and increase their awareness on the MSDs issues.
Working in a safe working posture is a necessity to enhance occupational health of industrial workers. Poor
working posture may lead to injuries, discomfort and fatigue to the workers. The objective of this study is to survey the
postures practised by the Malaysian industrial workers. A questionnaire survey was performed among 282 Malaysian
industrial workers in 10 different industries. From the answered questionnaire, it was observed that shoulder at chest
level (30.1%), back in a bent forward (33.3%) and lifting heavy load (44.7%) are the major work postures practised by
most of industrial workers. This survey identifies that working with shoulder and hand at chest level and back region
moderately bent forward is the main working posture practice by worker. Workers also reported lifting load below 5 kg
at the workstation. This survey recommended for industrial workers to be aware of the comfortable working posture
to avoid injury.
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb (WRMSDs-UL) account for one of the largest types of occupational disorders worldwide. This broad term includes several disorders, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, tension neck syndrome and lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) which are generally caused by poor postures, repetitive strain and psychosocial factors. Various workplace interventions have been investigated and employed to prevent the different WRMSDs-UL, but a common consensus to address the problem has yet to be achieved. This paper reviews and discusses the efficacies of some interventions which have been tested for the most prevalent type of WRMSDs-UL, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). The focus will be on computer users who developed CTS out of the prolonged and repetitive use of keyboards and pointing devices. The interventions studied include engineering design, management strategies, personal development, medical treatment and multi-dimensional approaches. Outcome of the study reveals that the most effective approach would be one that is multi-dimensional in nature, with the inclusion of at least two or more intervention strategies at the same time.
In the new global economy, workplace safety has become a central issue among companies all over the world.
It is becoming difficult to ignore that this trend has also been happening in Malaysia especially the manufacturing
sector. The worrying trend can be seen from the increasing number of workplace accidents reported by Department
of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), Malaysia in manufacturing companies. In recent years, researchers have
shown an interest in studying the role of safety leadership to reduce workplace accidents. It is found that safety
leadership plays a significant role in ensuring a safe and sound workplace. Due to this concern, this paper attempts
to provide a conceptualization of safety leadership from the perspective of Malaysia’s manufacturing sector. It is
proposed that positive safety leadership lead to a reduction of workplace accidents. In response to this matter, it is
hypothesized that the higher level of safety leadership will positively affect the lower level of workplace accidents.
A questionnaire from Wu et al. (2008) will be adopted to explain the conceptualization of safety leadership, where it
is expected that the concept of safety leadership practised in Malaysia’s manufacturing sector has a similar meaning
from the perspective of western researchers.
The objective of this study is to identify the type of occupational related musculoskeletal disorder among Malaysian Shipping Industry workers and to determine the relationship between workers sosio demographic factors with occupational related musculoskeletal disorder and injuries. This is a cross sectional, retrospective study using secondary data that is available at the physiotherapy centre of Malaysia Shipping in Selangor. The study population is the shipping port workers received physiotherapy treatment from 2011 and 2012. A total of 90 samples comprise of 85 male workers and the remaining is female. The mean age is 34.1 (±7.36). Crane operator is the largest number of workers seeks for physiotherapy treatment (68), office (15) and 7 from maintenance. The mean of employment duration is 8.02 (±4.47) years with the maintenance group of workers have longest working duration of 9 years. Muscle and ligament sprain strain known to be the commonest condition (80%) refer for physiotherapy rehabilitation, tendinitis (14%) and fracture (6%). Young age group of workers were significantly 9 times higher (95% CI 1.83 – 40.35) of getting back injuries. The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorder based on work categories vary with office type workers has 4.5 times higher (95% CI 1.06 – 19.7) on hand injuries. This study has revealed that workers age, different type of work categories, working experience, and body mass composition were associates with the occupational related injuries. The training programme emphasise on preventive measures should be tailored to empower the employee on safety measures at work.
A cross-sectional study was conducted on 83 female electronics factory workers. The respondents comprised 50 exposed workers who use lead alloy solder and 33 unexposed workers. The objective of this study was to assess the lead exposure of these workers. Breathing zone were sampled using air sampling pumps. Dust samples were collected by wipe method. Venous blood collected and blood pressure were measured. All lead analyses were carried out with Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The mean air lead for exposed workers (57 0. ± 0.93 μg/m³) was significantly higher than the unexposed workers (0.0067 ± 0.0045μg/m³) (p
The frequency of occupational accident in small medium industries decreased from 2008 in general, but fluctuated each year,
which shows that improvement is needed in handling safety and health of the employees. It is believed that safety climate perception
and occupational safety health management system (OSHMS) influence occupational accident in an organization. A safety audit
checklist and self-administered questionnaire was distributed to the involved small medium industries. The findings show that safety
climate perception was high in small medium industries while OSHMS show low compliance. Findings also showed that there were
significant relationships between safety climate perception and OSHMS with occupational accident in the organizations (p
Psychology has been well-accepted for application in virtually all aspects of human activities, including making a living. Thus, the objective of this paper is to introduce the application of psychology at workplaces. Specifically this paper addresses the importance of the profession of Industrial and Organizational Psychologist in the increasingly advanced and industrious society of Malaysia. It highlights the areas that the professional cares for, as well as its roles and positions in the view of the nation’s needs. Besides that, this paper also stresses the essential issues that Industrial and Organizational Psychologist practicing in Malaysia should consider. In short, this paper advocates the need of having professionals to look into the well-being of individuals contributing towards making Malaysia a developed nation.
Purpose - The aims of this concept paper are to critically review and identify gaps in current literature on personality
and safety performance, provide a definition of personality and safety performance, explore the role of personality on
safety performance, come out with recommendation for future research. Design/methodology/approach - Review and
synthesis of literature. Findings - All dimensions of Big Five Personality (Openness to Experiences, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) have contributed to the safety performance. Research limitations/
implications - Personality for this concept paper refers to the Model of Big Five. Future studies should explore other
personality types such as Myers Briggs Personality and Holland Personality. Practical implications - The authors
recommended that organizations need to design test of personality specially for safety and health and use it during the
interview session in order to select the right candidate to serve them for enhancing safety performance. Originality/
value - This concept paper offers a set of interesting lessons for organizations by providing the positive personality
that must be apply by employees based on Big Five Personality model that will assist to improve safety performance.
This paper is focusing on developing theoretical model on the effects of psychosocial and physical safety climate
towards workers task performance. Psychosocial and physical safety climate can be defined as workers’ perception
on organizational policies, process, and procedures outline, specifically on psychosocial issues and physical safety
aspect. This paper is based on sociotechnical philosophy by highlighting the integration of both psychosocial and
physical safety climate in predicting task performance. According to the philosophy, workers working performance is
dependent on both social and technical context in environment to accomplish the task and will influence both physical
products and psychosocial outcomes. Thus, it is essential to investigate the integration of psychosocial and physical
safety climate in predicting performance outcome.
Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) nowadays is an established risk assessment method used worldwide for the evaluation of risks on onshore plant and offshore facilities which associated with the major hazard installations. However, there are still many issues on QRA used. These include lack of consistency, complexity of the overall model structure, incorporation of new data, methodology and model analysis. Common problem observed for the onshore QRA methodology is conservatism of fire and explosion consequence results using DNV PhastRisk 6.7 software which is mainly contributed from the high release rate due to loss of containment. This paper presents an alternative way to predict the actual release rate for fire and explosion modelling which called limiting flowrate technique. This method has been applied for calculating risk in Onshore Gas Terminal (OGT) Plant. Adopting the limiting flowrate technique has provide more precise model towards real scenarios. Challenges facing during this research such as using the unmodified United Kingdom (UK) HSE hydrocarbon release database without integrate with the actual failure frequencies from the plant, the risk results tend to be much higher than actual experience. It should be noted that the development of improved onshore risk model has been used as an example for this research but many of the issues are equally applicable to offshore studies as well.
Company A is a brownfield refinery that had been in service for over 25 years and has its own system to generate GOX for its needed utility usage. Noting of the hazards of GOX and in consideration of an aged refinery, this research is of the intent to evaluate the risk of GOX in the aspect of personnel and process safety; and to provide recommendation or mitigations planning with regards to Company A’s existing hardware through Bow Tie review. The analysis was done taking into consideration the data compiled as well as the inherited Process Safety Assessment (PSA) findings of Company A that served as secondary data to this research. It was observed that Company A personnel are well versed with the risk and hazards of GOX system and through the plant rejuvenation and material upgrade works, the hazards were mitigated to a lower risk within the risk matrix. The implementation and upgrade works had served to add more barriers to the left side of the bow tie as well as ensuring that the aged complex is well equipped with needed safeguarding strategies (from inherent safer design, passive & active safeguarding and procedural controls) to avoid the occurrence of potential oxygen fire or explosion incident.
Lack of safety awareness among quarry workers caused a number of accidents in quarry industries. The objective
of this study is to gauge the awareness level towards safety among quarry workers. A questionnaire was distributed
randomly among quarry workers in Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan. The questionnaire consists of 6 questions
regarding safety at workplace. Results revealed that 56.9% of the respondents agreed and totally agreed for the health
and safety suggestions made to be given consideration and used. As many as 79.3% respondents admitted that they
obeyed all the safety rules stated at the workplace and 86.3% respondents said that they always focused and gave
full attention while completing their task. A high percentage of 88% of the respondents agreed for all accidents
to be reported to responsible persons while 77.6% respondents agreed for all personal protective equipment to be
used suitable with the task given and 86.2% respondents answered that they performed their task following the safe
operation procedures provided by the company.
Poor IAQ would lead to the occurrence of Sick Building Syndrome
(SBS) and other symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the IAQ and the symptoms
of SBS among the office workers in the two selected buildings (old and new). A
comparative cross sectional study was conducted among 90 office workers from an
old building (26 years of age) and a new building (5 years of age). The SBS symptoms
were assessed utilising the questionnaires adopted from Industry Code of Practice
(ICOP) 2010 while IAQ parameters were monitored using the Handheld 3016 IAQ
Particle Counter and Multi-Function Ventilation Meter. All the parameters studied
were below the standard limit as set by the Department of Occupational Safety and
Health (DOSH) and the United States of America’s Environmental Protection Agency
(US EPA) except for air velocity in the old building which was lower than the
acceptable standard range. The levels of PM10 and total particulate matter (TPM) in
the old building was significantly higher as compared to the new building (PM10: Z=
-2.495, p = 0.013 and TPM: Z = -2.873, p = 0.014). The SBS prevalence was 51.1%
among respondents at the new building while 64.4% for old building. However, the
difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). There was a significant
association of drowsiness among respondents between old and new building (2=
4.050, p = 0.044). Therefore, in order to ensure a good IAQ, regular maintenance of
ventilation and control measures should be conducted.
Workers who are exposed to high noise level were at risk of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). This crosssectional study was conducted to investigate the noise exposure level and hearing symptoms among workers exposed to noise in a teaching hospital. Utilising convenience sampling method, 20 laundry workers and 17 mechanical cutters were recruited into this study. Noise exposure levels were measured using noise dosimeter for 8 hours and information on hearing symptoms were gathered using a modified questionnaire adopted from the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA). A significantly higher mean noise level (85±2 dB(A)) was reported among mechanical cutters as compared to laundry workers (80±3 dB(A)), p=0.001 although the former had shorter duration of noise exposure (20±3 hours per week vs. 28±12 hours per week). Fourteen (70%) laundry workers and six (35%) mechanical cutters had reported having hearing problem in noisy background. Higher proportion of laundry workers (n=8, 57%) had reported hearing symptoms compared to mechanical cutters (n=6, 43%) and longer work years was found to be significantly associated with hearing symptoms (p=0.049). There is a need of appropriate education and training on noise exposure, NIHL and hearing protection devices usage in the workplaces