Work-related health complaints and risk factors of information and documentation center employees

Every occupation carries with it some degree of health risk. Diseases and disease risks vary according to the occupation and the working environment. Examining the different factors of a disease can reveal how disease manifests itself differently in persons of different occupations and provides a way of identifying occupational diseases. Unhealthy working conditions affect the health of the worker and increases risk factors connected with the worker?s health. Reducing or eliminating occupational diseases or the possible health risks they present for the working population, discovering the causes of these diseases will increase worker job satisfaction, enhance quality of life and ensure the creation of a healthy and safe working environment.Information-documentation management has found a place for itself in society as a profession as well as a professional group, yet the protection of this group from occupational diseases and disease risks is a matter that is of a different dimension compared to other professional groups. This research has examined working environments at information and documentation centers, using questionnaires to study the present status of occupational health at these centers while aiming to establish what adverse conditions these environments presented and what health complaints and risk factors were involved. The ?Job Satisfaction Evaluation Form? and the Quality of Life Scale were administered to 265 information-documentation workers to determine the degree of job satisfaction and quality of life that these professionals experienced in their working environments. A major determining factor in the study was the existence of adverse conditions in the working environment. The data collected in the Health Assessment Form led to the observation that workers suffered to a great extent from allergic symptoms related to dust and other physical factors within the environment