Evaluation of a pilot consultation for maternity protection at work in Switzerland.

Study Aims: Switzerland's Labour Law and its Ordonnance on Maternity Protection aim to protect the health of pregnant employees and their unborn children while enabling them to continue to pursue their professional activities. Some companies encounter difficulties implementing the law's provisions. The Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, part of the Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisanté), has provided specialist occupational medicine consultations for pregnant employees since 2015.

Evolution of disability pension after renal transplantation: methods and results of a database linkage study of the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study and Swiss Disability Insurance.

Aims: In Switzerland, certain patients with disabilities and reduced working ability are entitled to a disability pension granted by the Swiss Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO). The aim was to assess the evolution of disability pension and work capacity after kidney transplantation and thereby pilot the procedures linking FSIO data with Swiss Transplant Cohort Study (STCS) data.

Methods: The current study pilot tested the record linkage of FSIO data with data from the STCS in a single-centre, observational setting.

Midwives and protection of pregnant workers in Western Switzerland: Practices, difficulties and contributions.

Background: Switzerland's maternity protection legislation aims to protect the health of pregnant employees and their unborn children by regulating their potential occupational exposure to hazards and strenuous activities. This legislation provides a role for obstetricians, but not for midwives.

Aims: Identify the practices of Switzerland's French-speaking midwives that favour the implementation of maternity protection legislation and reflect on the profession's role in supporting pregnant employees.

Evolution of gynaecologists' practices regarding the implementation of Swiss legislation on maternity protection at work between 2008 and 2017.

Background: In accordance with the International Labour Organization’s Maternity Protection Convention (No. 183) and European Union Directive 92/857CEE (1992), Switzerland’s Labour Law and its Maternity Protection Ordinance (OProMa) aim to protect the health of pregnant employees and their future children while enabling them to pursue their working activities. Gynaecologists-obstetricians have a key role in this legislation, particularly through the prescription of preventive leave for patients who would otherwise face dangerous or arduous tasks in the absence of an adequate risk analysis or suitable protective measures.

Implementation of the Swiss ordinance on maternity protection at work in companies in French-speaking Switzerland.

Background: Switzerland's Ordinance on Maternity Protection at Work (OProMa) requires that companies take the necessary measures to ensure that pregnant employees can continue working without danger.

Objective: To investigate the extent of compliance with OProMa within companies in French-speaking Switzerland as well as factors which facilitate and obstruct the ordinance's implementation.

Methods: A stratified random telephone survey of 202 companies from the healthcare and food industry was conducted.

Air Quality in the Working Environment and Respiratory Health of Female Congolese Stone Quarry Workers.

Background And Aim: Environmental and occupational exposure to high dust levels are known to be associated with lung function impairment. We assessed the ambient air quality in the working environment and the respiratory health of female stone quarry workers in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in a context of severe economic, security, and health crises.

Methods: This was a case-control study conducted in three stone quarry sites.

Levels of the oxidative stress biomarker malondialdehyde in tears of patients with central serous chorioretinopathy relate to disease activity.

Purpose: Central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) has been associated with oxidative stress-related risk factors. The objective of this study was to optimize an analytical method for evaluating the oxidative stress biomarker malondialdehyde (MDA) in human tears and determine its level in the tears of patients with CSCR.

Methods: In this pilot study, tear samples were obtained from 34 healthy donors and 31 treatment-naïve CSCR male patients (eight with acute CSCR and 23 with chronic CSCR).

Implementation of maternity protection legislation: Gynecologists' perceptions and practices in French-speaking Switzerland.

Background: In several countries, maternity protection legislations (MPL) confer an essential role to gynecologist-obstetricians (OBGYNs) for the protection of pregnant workers and their future children from occupational exposures. This study explores OBGYNs' practices and difficulties in implementing MPL in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Methods: An online survey was sent to 333 OBGYNs.

Energy, Nutrient and Food Intakes of Male Shift Workers Vary According to the Schedule Type but Not the Number of Nights Worked.

Shift work is associated with increased risk of chronic diseases due to circadian rhythm disruptions and behavioral changes such as in eating habits. Impact of type of shifts and number of night shifts on energy, nutrient and food intake is as yet unknown. Our goal was to analyze shift workers' dietary intake, eating behavior and eating structure, with respect to frequency of nights worked in a given week and seven schedule types.

Respiratory Variability, Sighing, Anxiety, and Breathing Symptoms in Low- and High-Anxious Music Students Before and After Performing.

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a major problem for music students. It is largely unknown whether music students who experience high or low anxiety differ in their respiratory responses to performance situations and whether these co-vary with self-reported anxiety, tension, and breathing symptoms. Affective processes influence dynamic respiratory regulation in ways that are reflected in measures of respiratory variability and sighing.

Should systemic sclerosis be recognised as an occupational disease in Switzerland?

Systemic sclerosis is a rare autoimmune disease characterised by a multifactorial aetiology involving a gene–environment interaction. Despite the growing epidemiological arguments for odds ratio (OR) data showing an association with occupational exposure, systemic sclerosis is not currently included in the list of recognised occupational diseases in Switzerland, unlike other northern European countries. Future recognition will be conditional on the demonstration of a strong association between the disease and occupational exposure in the scientific literature.

Recognizing images: The role of motivational significance, complexity, social content, age, and gender.

Memory for affective events plays an important role in determining people's behavior and well-being. Its determinants are far from being completely understood. We investigated how recognition memory for affective pictures depends on pictures' motivational significance (valence and arousal), complexity (figure-ground compositions vs.

Age related micronuclei frequency ranges in buccal and nasal cells in a healthy population.

Background: Micronuclei (MNs) are extranuclear DNA-containing bodies and determining MN frequencies is a measure of genomic instability. An age-related increase in MN frequencies in lymphocytes has been quantified, but this effect has not yet been measured in nasal and buccal cells.

Methods: We determined the effect of age on the MN frequency distributions in buccal and nasal cells among a sample of a general adult population in Switzerland.

Biological monitoring of workers exposed to carcinogens using the buccal micronucleus approach: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

A biomarker-based approach using micronucleus (MN) (extranuclear DNA-containing bodies) frequencies in buccal cells has been proposed to monitor workers exposed to aero-digestive carcinogens for early detection of occupational cancer. To assess this non-invasive MN approach, we sought to understand: (A) What is the extent of MN frequency increase in occupationally exposed over non-exposed populations across studies published in the scientific literature for buccal cells; and (B) Which types of occupational exposures give relevant summary MN ratios across studies published in the scientific literature. A systematic literature review was performed, and the MN frequency ratios for buccal cells were calculated for each occupational study.

Eating Habits of Professional Firefighters: Comparison With National Guidelines and Impact Healthy Eating Promotion Program.

Objective: Firefighters' eating habits may be an additional risk factor for metabolic diseases. We assessed eating habits of firefighters, compared them with national guidelines, and evaluated the impact of a prevention program.

Methods: Twenty-eight professional firefighters from a Swiss airport benefited from a healthy-eating program.

Eye gaze behavior during affective picture viewing: Effects of motivational significance, gender, age, and repeated exposure.

How top-down and bottom-up factors combine to determine eye movements during affective picture viewing is far from being completely understood. We investigated how observers' fixation frequency and scanpath length - two indices of information seeking and intake - are related to self-reported valence (pleasantness) and arousal and depend on gender, age, and repeated exposure during affective picture viewing. We tracked the eye movements of 157 younger, middle-aged, and older adults when viewing 14 picture series each consisting of six thematically and affectively similar pictures.

The mediating role of mood in the relationship between perseverative cognition, sleep and subjective health complaints in music students.

Objective: Subjective health complaints (SHC) are frequent in musicians. These complaints may be particularly distressing in this population because they are performance relevant. This paper aims at testing a model positing that (a) perseverative cognition (PC) predicts sleep duration/quality, (b) sleep duration/quality predicts SHC and (c) mood is a mediator of these associations.

Predictors of Return to Work 12 Months After Solid Organ Transplantation: Results from the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study.

Background Return to work with or after a chronic disease is not a very well understood process, influenced by a variety of personal, professional, societal and medical factors. The aim of this study is to identify predictors for return to work 12 months after a solid organ transplant applying a bio-psycho-social model. Methods This study is based on patients included in the Swiss Transplant Cohort Study, a national prospective multicentre cohort, who underwent a first solid organ transplant (kidney, liver, heart, lung).

Implementation, mechanisms and effects of maternity protection legislation: a realist narrative review of the literature.

Purpose: Most industrialized countries have introduced maternity protection legislation (MPL) to protect the health of pregnant workers and their unborn children from workplace exposure. This review aimed to assess this legislation's level of implementation, barriers and facilitators to it, and its expected or unexpected effects.

Methods: A realist narrative review was conducted.

Respiratory health of dust-exposed Congolese coltan miners.

Purpose: In Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), informal coltan mining has been expanding amidst increased insecurity due to armed conflicts. We investigated the impact of occupational dust-exposure on the respiratory health of Congolese coltan miners.

Methods: In total, 441 Congolese workers participated in this study, including 199 informal coltan miners and 242 office workers (controls).

Protection of pregnant women at work in Switzerland: practices, obstacles and resources. A mixed-methods study protocol.

Introduction: Like most industrialised countries, Switzerland has introduced legislation to protect the health of pregnant workers and their unborn children from workplace exposure. This legislation provides for a risk assessment, adaptations to workplaces and, if the danger is not eliminated, preventive leave (prescribed by a gynaecologist). This study's first objective is to analyse the degree to which companies, gynaecologists and midwives implement the law.

Exposure to field vs. storage wheat dust: different consequences on respiratory symptoms and immune response among grain workers.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to understand the differential acute effects of two distinct wheat-related dusts, such as field or stored wheat dust handling, on workers' health and how those effects evolved at 6 month intervals.

Methods: Exposure, work-related symptoms, changes in lung function, and blood samples of 81 workers handling wheat and 61 controls were collected during the high exposure season and 6 months after. Specific IgG, IgE, and precipitins against 12 fungi isolated from wheat dust were titrated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, dissociation-enhanced lanthanide fluorescence immunoassay, and electrosyneresis.

Prolonged performance-related neuroendocrine activation and perseverative cognition in low- and high-anxious university music students.

Music performances are social-evaluative situations that can elicit marked short-term neuroendocrine activation and anxious thoughts especially in musicians suffering from music performance anxiety (MPA). The temporal patterns of neuroendocrine activity and concert-related worry and rumination (perseverative cognition, PC) days before and after a concert in low- and high-anxious musicians are unknown. The first goal of the present study was to investigate the prolonged effects of a solo music performance and the effects of trait MPA on salivary cortisol (sC), alpha-amylase (sAA), and concert-related PC.

Long title: Protocol for evaluating a Consultation for Suffering at work in French-speaking Switzerland.

Introduction: Psychosocial suffering entails human, social and economic costs. In Switzerland, 34.4% of workers report chronic work-related stress.