Med Pr
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The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) generated a huge pressure on health care systems worldwide and exposed their lack of preparation for a major health crisis. In the times of a respiratory disease pandemic, members of the dental profession, due to having a direct contact with the patients' oral cavity, body fluids and airborne pathogens, are exposed to a great occupational hazard of becoming infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The authors carried out a systematic literature search using the main online databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, MEDLINE, UpToDate, Embase, and Web of Science) with the following keywords: "COVID-19," "2019-nCoV," "coronavirus," "SARS-CoV-2," "dental COVID-19," "dentistry COVID-19," "occupational hazards dentistry," "ventilation," "air disinfection," "airborne transmission," "hydrogen peroxide disinfection," "UV disinfection," "ozone disinfection," "plasma disinfection," and "TiO2 disinfection." They included publications focused on COVID-19 features, occupational hazards for dental staff during COVID-19 pandemic, and methods of air disinfection. ⋯ The authors specifically advise on the utilization of wildly accepted methods like ultraviolet germicidal irradiation with additional disinfection systems, which have not been introduced in dentistry yet, like vaporized hydrogen peroxide, non-thermal plasma and air filters with photocatalytic disinfection properties. Due to its toxicity, ozone is not the first-choice method for air decontamination of enclosed clinical settings. Med Pr. 2021;72(1):39-48.
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Environmental tobacco smoke exposure (ETS) is a significant risk factor for the development of many diseases, including lung cancer, lower respiratory tract infections, asthma and eye, throat and nasal irritations. Hospitality workers form an occupational group with high exposure to ETS in their workplace. ⋯ Most studies have also indicated a significant reduction in respiratory and sensory symptoms. The impact of the smoking ban on the lung function measurements is still not clear.
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Affective contagion is a process of transferring of mood or emotions between individuals. The process often occurs among people who work together and leads to the activation of collective emotions and moods. In particular, it refers to the work teams whose members often cooperate, have positive relations with each other, and are interdependent. ⋯ The author discusses the stages of affective contagion and reviews the research on affective contagion at work. She also characterizes the consequences of the spread of collective states between workers for their functioning at work. Individual differences in susceptibility to affective contagion as well as in tendency to affect others with one's feelings are also discussed.
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Work stress is nowadays one of the major world-wide problems because of its negative impact on health and socio-economic consequences. Therefore, many organizations, established to protect occupational health and safety, include stress-related issues into their preventive activities. This article is the first part of a broader review of approaches to work stress prevention and existing practices in Europe. It presents anti-stress interventions elaborated and implemented at international and national levels, such as: legal and research initiatives, educational actions, supporting the development of knowledge of occupational stress, and promoting the idea of healthy work place.
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One of the fundamental public health challenges in the 21st century should be the improvement of people's health literacy, namely the understanding of health messages. The acquired high level of health literacy means that one knows how and where information concerning health determinants can be found, is able to assess it critically and in favorable conditions even modify them, which seems to be of particular importance from the perspective of heath promotion, prevention or treatment of diseases. Therefore, for professionals in these fields, knowledge of ways how to improve health literacy, as well as awareness of related benefits and the consequences of its poor level, seems to be indispensable. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explain the term of "health literacy", its determinants and implications.