Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2020-07"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 56
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Correlation between the spread of COVID-19 and the Interest in personal protective measures in Poland and PortugalPublication . Strzelecki, Artur; Azevedo, Ana; Marina Nunes Albuquerque, AlexandraThe pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has gained extensive coverage in public media and global news, generated international and national communication campaigns to educate the communities worldwide and raised the attention of everyone. The coronavirus has caused viral pneumonia in tens of thousands of people around the world, and the COVID-19 outbreak changed most countries’ routines and concerns and transformed social behaviour. This study explores the potential use of Google Trends (GT) in monitoring interest in the COVID-19 outbreak and, specifically, in personal protective equipment and hand hygiene, since these have been promoted by official health care bodies as two of the most protective measures. GT was chosen as a source of reverse engineering data, given the interest in the topic and the novelty of the research. Current data on COVID-19 are retrieved from GT using keywords in two languages—Portuguese and Polish. The geographical settings for GT are two countries: Poland and Portugal. The period under analysis is 20 January 2020, when the first cases outside China were known, to 15 June 2020. The results show that there is a correlation between the spread of COVID-19 and the search for personal protective equipment and hand hygiene and that GT can help, to a certain extent, understand people’s concerns, behaviour and reactions to sanitary problems and protection recommendations
- Effect of a safety intervention in a gas industry on safety climate levelPublication . Monteiro, Raquel; Balazeiro, Márcia; Vieira Da Silva, Manuela; Rodrigues, MatildeThe oil and gas sector is one of the high-risk sectors. In this sector, catastrophic accidents are not the only problem, since occupational accidents and injuries are equally important. Safety climate has been pointed as an important factor related to the companies’ safety performance. However, interventions to improve it are still limited. The present study aims to design and implement an intervention and assess its effect on the enterprise’ safety climate. Were defined for this study two groups: intervention group, where the intervention was implemented, (n=78) and control group, without intervention, (n=55). The study was carried out in different plants from a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) industry. Workers from the experimental group operated in plant A. Workers from the control group operated in plants B and C. The intervention included psychoeducational sessions, cases studies, accidents scenarios, videos and group discussion. To assess the safety climate, the 11-item Brief Norwegian Safety Climate Inventory (Brief NORSCI) was applied to the workers. The questionnaire was applied prior, immediately afterward and two months later the intervention. The obtained results demonstrated a positive effect of the safety intervention in safety climate. Significant differences were observed in almost all the dimensions of this scale in the experimental group. This study showed that it is possible to improve safety climate by designing an intervention program adapted to the reality of the LPG industry.
- Effectiveness of an ergonomic intervention to reduce musculoskeletal discomfortPublication . Cardoso, Bárbara; Mateus, Catarina; Rodrigues, MatildeMusculoskeletal discomfort is common among office workers, being related to individual, workplace and behaviors risk factors. Ergonomic interventions are of particular importance to reduce musculoskeletal discomfort. However, only few have studied the impact of an ergonomic intervention on these symptoms reduction. This study aims to design and implement an intervention program to reduce musculoskeletal symptoms in office workers. A total of 84 employees from a charity and social assistance institution were involved in the study. The intervention included training actions to all employees, delivery of informative pamphlet and modifications in workplaces. To assess the intervention effectiveness, a questionnaire with a scale to assess musculoskeletal discomfort was applied in three moments: Pre-intervention; Post intervention Moment 1 and Post-intervention Moment 2. The areas described with greater musculoskeletal discomfort in the three moments were the neck, lower back, upper back and right shoulder. Between Pre-intervention and Post intervention Moment 1, there was a tendency to reduce musculoskeletal discomfort at the end of the day in all regions analyzed. It was also found a stagnation of discomfort in some regions of the body, comparing the Moment 1 and Moment 2 Post-intervention. Significant improvements in upper back and neck at the end of the workday were observed. This study suggests that an ergonomic intervention program has advantages for the employees' health, promoting the reduction of musculoskeletal symptoms
- Diana Machado, Aldina Correia and Vítor Braga Women's Entrepreneurship and InternationalizationPublication . Machado, Diana; Correia, Aldina; Braga, Vitor
- Transversal and Professional Skills Self-Efficacy Scale: Cultural Adaptation and Evidence of ValidityPublication . Audibert, Alyane; Diana Aguiar Vieira, PhD; Andrade, Alexsandro Luiz de; Oliveira, Manoela Ziebell deToday, the preparation for working life and lifelong career management is becoming increasingly demanding challenges. Hence, in recent years, transversal competences have become more important. The aim of this paper is to present the adaptation study to the Brazilian context of the Transversal and Professional Skills Self-Efficacy Scale (TPS-SE), originally developed in Portugal. The sample consists of 658 Brazilians, 85.7% women. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis procedures were performed, and the final model presented satisfactory adjustment ratios, offering an alternative version with a general factor, and confirming the three-factor structure of the original scale, which assesses confidence in the ability to perform (1) personal and interpersonal skills in the workplace, (2) complex personal skills, and (3) transversal technical skills. It can be concluded that TPS-SE_Br can be used in intervention and research contexts, either in the form of general indicators, clustered in dimensions or in an individual item analysis.
- Important factors in the effectiveness of interventions for decreasing occupational sedentary behavior (short review)Publication . Maheronnaghsh, Sara; Vaz, Mário; Santos, Joana; Abadi, Sara Shahedi AliOccupational sedentary behavior (SB) is an occupational risk and an independent predictor of poor health and mortality. The impact of implemented interventions in workplaces for reducing SB has been studied several times, and their outcomes have been investigated. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that can increase the effectiveness of the interventions in workplaces. Methodology: The search was conducted in Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science and other resources for articles published in scientific journals from 2010 until 2019 in English, using a set of keywords as “sedentary behavior”, “physical activity”, ”effectiveness” “occupational” and ” intervention”. Results and discussion: The review included ten studies that examined the effectiveness of interventions on physical activity (PA) and/or SBs and searched about factors that have an impact on failure or success of interventions. Various factors were identified like individual, organizational, and social factors associated with the SB and PA. Supportive workplace policies, time for involvement in intervention, paying for activity, environment, and job type requirements were the main organizational factors. Also, Interpersonal and educational factors, and some sociodemographic factors associated with the PA. Furthermore, social factors have a significant effect on willingness to do PA in workers. Conclusion: Current evidence shows that some organizational, individual, environmental, and social factors influence work PA; therefore, before choosing the intervention, they need to be considered in each population individually.
- Cinema Sem Imagem: um estudo de geração imagéticaPublication . Lopes, Filipe; Afonso, Pedro M.
- Safety and health conditions in construction sites from the perspective of site safety coordinationPublication . Rocha, Ricardo; Alberto Alves Carvalhais, Carlos; Santos, JoanaThe numerous risk factors present in the construction sector make it one of the factors with the highest number of accidents at work, and it can drive to the development of occupational diseases. So, it becomes important to comply with national and community legal provisions, namely, compliance with Decree-Law nº. 273/2003, of 29 October. The latter foresees the mandatory presence of a Health and Safety Coordinator in shipyards, with no exceptions discriminated in the legal diploma. The main objective of this study was to verify the safety and health conditions in civil construction works, analysing the compliance with the Safety and Health Plan of the construction phase and the legal requirements in force. In order to achieve the objective of this study, a verification tool was developed, divided into nineteen chapters and applied to thirty construction sites, where the number of questions in Compliance (C) and Non-Compliance (NC) was verified. After its application, it was highlighted that the chapter with the highest absolute number of NC corresponded to works at height. The presence of a Safety Coordinator on site is essential in order to guarantee the application of safety measures, namely those described in the Safety and Health Plan of the site, compliance with current legislation, and the guarantee of safety and health conditions for all workers on site
- Clustering Direct Load Control Appliances in the Context of Demand Response Programs in Energy CommunitiesPublication . Barreto, Rúben; Faria, Pedro; Silva, Cátia; Vale, ZitaThe demand response program explained in this article is designed to be implemented in communities seeking to achieve a self-sustaining system, namely through renewable energy such as photovoltaic energy. This article, through concepts such as prosumer and clustering, aims to make the most efficient management of the resources provided by the energy community. The developed demand response clusters the different consumers who have the same type of consumption throughout the day. That is, it brings together those whose behavior of the respective loads resemble each other and can be viewed from the perspective of an individual load or even clustered with one or more loads. The study comprises three villages with different numbers of consumers and charges, where, through their participation, it is estimated that there are reductions in electricity bills and, for those who collaborated for the study, it is attributed a remuneration according to their performance.
- Key Performance Indicators to Support the Participation in Demand Response Programs:A Testing Framework for End UsersPublication . São José, Débora de; Faria, Pedro; Silva, Cátia; Vale, ZitaWith the new challenges and complexity in power electricity management, demand response programs can be a way to reduce stress and strengthen power grids. However, as demand response implies end users to intentionally change their consuming patterns to adapt to grids needs, some decision-making support tools are necessary. The present paper proposes an energy management and controlling tool to assist electricity end users to make their decision to change consumption pattern in a DR scenario while using key performance indicators. The tool was tested using a group of 20 end users and showed a consistent result throughout all the elements in the sample.