RESUMO
AIMS: Companies use non-native language (L2) as a service tool, and they may incur in occupational psychosocial risks. Interlanguage can be chronic under poor communicative situations, leading to fossilization. It could be an adverse effect because of its impact in productivity and occupational health. Thus, our aim was to establish factors of this psychosocial risk. METHODS: 348 information and communication technologists (ICT) were analyzed. They were native Spanish speakers with normal hearing, and used English as a work tool. Age, gender, L2 stages and errors were recorded in relation to fossilization risk. Statistical methods were applied for categorical data (p<0.05). RESULTS: After gender and age adjustments, a significant inverse association was found between L2 stages and fossilization risk (p<0.0001), with higher risk being in the acquisition stage. Also, L2 errors showed a significant direct relation with fossilization risk (p=0.0005). CONCLUSIONS: Summing up, ICT in acquisition L2 had upper psychosocial risk to fossilization with mechanistic execution of it, under poorer communicative formats. This results have high sanitary impact given they involved a massively demanded professionals.
Assuntos
Barreiras de Comunicação , Serviços de Informação , Multilinguismo , Saúde Ocupacional/estatística & dados numéricos , Adulto , Argentina , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Medição de RiscoRESUMO
Here, we present findings from a three-step investigation of the effect of galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) in normal subjects and in subjects undergoing vestibular rehabilitation (VR). In an initial study, we examined the body sway of 10 normal subjects after one minute of 2 mA GVS. The effect of the stimulation lasted for at least 20 minutes in all subjects and up to two hours in 70% of the subjects. We then compared a group of patients who received conventional VR (40 patients) with a group that received a combination of VR and GVS. Results suggest a significant improvement in the second group. Finally, we attempted to establish the optimal number of GVS sessions and to rule out a placebo effect. Fifteen patients received "systematic" GVS: five sessions, once a week. Five patients received "nonsystematic" galvanic stimulation in a sham protocol, which included two stimulations of the clavicle. These data were analyzed with Fisher's exact test and indicated that the best results were obtained after three sessions of GVS and no placebo effect was observed.