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Association of the working environment noise with occupational stress in industrial workers

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Abstract

Aim

We aimed to investigate the association of the working environment noise with the psychosocial status and occupational stress level of the workers of an industrial company.

Subject and methods

In this cross-sectional study, we enrolled all the employees at an industrial company. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire was used to measure the workplace psychosocial factors and stress levels of the participants. Based on the sound level measurements, the company sections were divided into two areas: the areas with noise ≥85 dB (dB) A and the areas with noise <85 dB A. Then the participants were categorized into two groups based on the working area and the study variables were compared between the two groups.

Results

We enrolled 401 workers from an industrial company. For 154 (38.4%) workers, the level of noise was equal to or above 85 dB A. According to the results of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, scores of the two groups were significantly different for scales related to cognitive, emotional, and sensory demands, possibilities for development, and predictability as well as workplace demand domain, which showed noise exposure level was significantly associated with perceived workplace demands (P = 0.002).

Conclusion

This study showed a slight association between the psychosocial status and the level of noise in the workplace environment.

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Data availability

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank the workers who participated in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Research on Occupational Diseases (CROD), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Omid Aminian, Maryam Saraie, Mehdi Ahadi & Sahar Eftekhari

Authors
  1. Omid Aminian
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  2. Maryam Saraie
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  3. Mehdi Ahadi
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  4. Sahar Eftekhari
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Contributions

Omid Aminian conceived and designed the experiments, contributed reagents, materials & data and involved in manuscript preparation and manuscript editing. Maryam Saraei conceived the experiments and was involved in manuscript preparation and manuscript editing. Mehdi Ahadi conceived the experiments, performed the experiments, and wrote the paper. Sahar Eftekhari conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed and interpreted the data, and was involved in manuscript preparation and manuscript editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sahar Eftekhari.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

The study was conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (revised in 2000). The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Consent to participate

A complete explanation about the purpose of the study was given to the participants and they all signed written informed consent.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Aminian, O., Saraie, M., Ahadi, M. et al. Association of the working environment noise with occupational stress in industrial workers. J Public Health (Berl.) 31, 979–984 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01605-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01605-y

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