[Health impact assessment of airport noise on people living nearby six Italian airports].

Background: aircraft noise has been associated with several health effects. Because of the great success of low-cost flights, small airports have been turned into international airports thus exposing nearby residents to an increase in noise levels and potential disturbances and health disorders.

Objective: to estimate the exposure levels and evaluate the health impact of aircraft noise on residents nearby six airports in Italy (Rome: Ciampino; Milan: Linate and Malpensa; Pisa; Turin; Venice) focusing on hypertension, acute myocardial infarction (AMI), annoyance and sleep disturbances.

Context specificity in the assessment of psychosocial risk at work: an empirical study on Italian call centre workers.

Background: Following EU requirements, in recent years standard procedures for the assessment of work-related stress have been developed in Italy. However, while such standardization has facilitated the spread and use of these procedures, it has brought a lack of specificity in risk assessment.

Objectives: To exemplify a method for the assessment of work-related stress that was developed by the University of Milan to allow the definition of risk profiles tailored to the different organizational settings.

[Burnout: survey of the literature].

Background: Past clinical research has provided varied and sometimes diverging descriptions of burnout.

Objectives: As burnout is still prevalent in today's workplaces, actions are required mainly at the primary but also at the secondary and tertiary levels of prevention.

Methods: In this literature review, the concept of burnout is reread through the lens of positive psychology and the most established theoretical models in the field.

[Work stress, common mental disorders and Work Ability Index among call center workers of an Italian company].

Aim: To test three hypotheses in an Italian sample of call center workers: higher levels of perceived work stress are associated with more frequent common mental disorders (GHQ-12) and a lower Work Ability Index; combining the Job Strain (JS) and Effort/Reward Imbalance (ERI) models increases explained variance in health over and above either model when applied separately; compared with outbound operators, inbound call handlers are expected to report a lower health status,which is due to a more intense exposure to task-related work stress factors in the latter.

Design: A multi-center cross-sectional study, conducted by means of interviews and self-administered questionnaires.

Setting And Participants: Call handlers working in the Italian branch of a telecommunication multinational company.

[Workplace bullying and sickness absenteeism].

Aim: To assess the relationship between workplace bullying and sickness absenteeism in a large sample of Italian workers.

Design: A cross-sectional study conducted by means of questionnaires.

Setting And Participants: In all, 8,992 subjects filled in a questionnaire to detect workplace bullying, the presence of work stress factors and days of sickness absence in the last year.

[Work-related stress in nursery school educators in the Venice and Marghera districts].

Background: Based on an investigation on organizational well-being in the Municipality of Venice (2009), we examined 110 public nursery school and preschool teachers working in the Venice and Marghera districts.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop and implement a procedure for work-related stress assessment and management in Municipality of Venice, in the light of Law 81/2008.

Methods: Occupational stress and its impact on teachers' well-being and health were assessed by means of self-administered questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

[Assessing employees' perceptions of risk factors for job stress using context-specific methods: the case of call-center workers].

The Italian Advisory Committee on work-related stress has outlined a step-by-step approach which considerably limits workers' participation in the first phases of the assessment procedure. Albeit cost-effective, such approach neglects the relevance of employees' perception in correctly identifying likely risk factors for job stress. Results of the present study, considering call center workers, points to the need of adopting subjective instruments for job stress assessment that are context-specific, whereas using generic job stress models only (such as Job Demand-Control and Effort Reward/Imbalance) may not permit the identfication of risk factors that are peculiar to the work settings under investigation.

[Role of "gender" and "age" factors in the assessment of psychosocial risk and in prevention interventions of hospital personnel].

Gender, age and psychosocial risks. The paper reports research experience on nurses with special reference to "gender" and "age". Parameters such as "affectivity" and "work-family conflict" indicate the insufficiency of policies and actions to limit staff shortage and safeguard health till retirement age.

Shiftwork, work-family conflict among Italian nurses, and prevention efficacy.

Shiftwork may be a demanding situation because it raises problems for reconciling work and nonwork activities; as such, this conflict may be mitigated by designing and implementing effective preventative actions at the workplace. There is a paucity of research directly examining the impact of work schedules and preventative measures at work on work-family conflict. Hence, the authors posed the following questions in their study: What is the impact of different work schedules on work-family conflict? Is a preventative culture associated with less work-family conflict? Is work-family conflict associated with specific health and well-being indicators and if so, how does work-family conflict affect well-being as compared with other potential determinants? A subset of 750 nurses ( approximately 10% of total workforce) were randomly selected from a larger sample.

[Nurses' working conditions, health and well being in Europe (Nurses' Early Exit Study)].

Nurses' shortage and a high turnover cause concern in Europe. The Nurses' Early Exit Study (NEXT) is a cross-cultural and longitudinal project funded by the European Union to ascertain the reasons of these trends. Ten European countries and 56.

Factors affecting work ability in day and shift-working nurses.

Satisfactory work ability is sustained and promoted by good physical and mental health and by favorable working conditions. This study examined whether favorable and rewarding work-related factors increased the work ability among European nurses. The study sample was drawn from the Nurses' Early Exit Study and consisted of 7,516 nursing staff from seven European countries working in state-owned and private hospitals.

Age-dependent relationships between work ability, thinking of quitting the job, and actual leaving among Italian nurses: a longitudinal study.

Background: Qualified nurses commonly report several work-related problems, which may threat their health and work ability, and may have an impact upon retention.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether perceived work ability is a predictor for different types of thinking of quitting and for actual exit from the workplace.

Design: A prospective study has been performed based on 3329 Italian registered nurses which responded to both measurements of the Nurses' Early Exit Study.

Violence risks in nursing--results from the European 'NEXT' Study.

Background: Recent research suggests that violence in health care is increasing and that it strongly influences the recruitment and retention of nurses as well as sick leave and burnout levels.

Aims: To identify the prevalence of violence in nursing and to provide a basis for appropriate interventions.

Methods: Nurses from 10 European countries answered to a questionnaire and to a follow-up assessment.

The impact of social work environment, teamwork characteristics, burnout, and personal factors upon intent to leave among European nurses.

Objectives: Europe's nursing shortage calls for more effective ways to recruit and retain nurses. This contribution aims to clarify whether and how social work environment, teamwork characteristics, burnout, and personal factors are associated with nurses' intent to leave (ITL).

Methods: Our sample comprises 28,561 hospital-based nurses from 10 European countries.

Work-related factors and violence among nursing staff in the European NEXT study: a longitudinal cohort study.

Background: The occurrence of workplace violence is rather frequent within the nursing profession, with well-known consequences on the psychological health of victims.

Objectives: This study is aimed at assessing the relationships between relevant individual, organizational, and psychosocial factors, and the frequency of several types of workplace violence; the direct as well as the interactive impact of violence and psychosocial factors on organizational commitment and perceived health.

Design: Questionnaire-based cross-sectional and longitudinal survey designs were employed for the two study objectives, respectively.

[Factors associated with violence against healthcare workers: results of the European Presst-Next study].

Introduction: The respective roles of medical specialties and work organization on violent events against healthcare workers (HCW) in different countries was examined.

Methods: Using the results of the Presst-Next study, we analyzed data from 27134 HCW in 7 European countries. Multivariate logistic analyses were conducted with SPSS 12 software.

Low-perceived work ability, ageing and intention to leave nursing: a comparison among 10 European countries.

Aim: This paper reports a study exploring nurses' perceived work ability and its associations with age and intention to leave nursing in a representative sample of registered nurses in 10 european countries.

Background: Throughout Europe, there is now a substantial shortage of Registered Nurses and unless steps are taken to reverse this trend, numbers are likely to decline further. A study exploring nurses' perceived work ability will provide baseline evidence, which may lead to improved working conditions and increased nursing retention.

Nurses' health, age and the wish to leave the profession--findings from the European NEXT-Study.

Background And Objectives: In many industrialised countries the number of workers with low health is expected to increase in the nursing profession. This will have implications for occupational health work in health care. The European NEXT-Study (www.

Application of a latent variable model for a multicenter study on early effects due to mercury exposure.

A latent variable model was applied to the results of an Italian multicenter nation-wide cross-sectional study to assess the earliest health effects due to mercury (Hg) exposure caused by occupation, dental amalgams (DENTAM) and fish eating (FISH). The studied population included subjects recruited from four different geographical areas. A total number of 122 workers from chloroalkali plants and production of thermometers and neon lamps formed the occupationally exposed group, whereas 196 subjects, recruited from the same areas and not occupationally exposed to mercury, formed the control group.

[The scientific progress of the "Clinica del Lavoro Luigi Devoto" as seen through the contents of the journal "La Medicina del Lavoro". ].

On occasion of the Centenary of the "Clinica del Lavoro Luigi Devoto", its researchers suggested that awareness of its historical identity and scientific development should constitute the basis for the future of the Institution. The directors of the Institute who have succeeded one to the other over the years have left a vivid report of the vast amount of work developed in several research fields and also of the original results achieved with significant impact on the scientific community and on society. Content analysis of "La Medicina del Lavoro" allowed us to shed light on strong bonds existing between manufacturing techniques, work organization and health, in the different political and social periods in which they developed.