Psychological performance of workers with blood-lead concentration below the current threshold limit value
✍ Scribed by P. Campara; F. D'Andrea; R. Micciolo; C. Savonitto; M. Tansella; Ch. Zimmermann-Tansella
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag
- Year
- 1984
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 833 KB
- Volume
- 53
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0340-0131
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The effects of lead exposure on psychological test performance and subjective feelings of well-being were investigated in 40 exposed workers whose Pb B levels had never exceeded 60 g/100 ml and in 20 controls matched for sex, age and educational level The exposed workers were divided into two groups of 20, with recent Pb B levels in the range 45-60 pg/100 ml or below 35 pg/100 ml The group of workers with the higher Pb B levels showed significantly poorer performance and reported more physical symptoms than the other two groups These differences were unrelated to sociodemographic and personality characteristics A principal component analysis suggested that the poorer performance was mainly due to an impairment of general functioning and only to some extent to a deterioration in specific functions, such as verbal reasoning and abstraction Higher lead concentrations were correlated with poorer performance and a higher number of physical complaints These results indicate that in exposed workers the threshold for impaired performance lies below the blood-lead concentration of 60 pg/ 100 ml, which is the current threshold limit value (TLV).