Abstract
Background and Objectives: Swimming pool water is quickly contaminated by swimmers which can cause the transmission and prevalence of various types of microbial infection through contact with the human body or accidently ingestion. Proper and regular chlorination of water in swimming pools, along with health monitoring by health care providers, and regular measurement of remaining chlorine along with controlling pH values, can be a useful tool to ensure the lack of risk to aforementioned diseases.
Material and Methods: In a cross-sectional study, during the four seasons of the year, 44 active swimming pools in Tabriz from 57 existing swimming pools were examined and the remaining chlorine, water temperature, ambient temperature and pH were measured. In addition to extraction of descriptive parameters, the obtained data were under the analysis of variance to compare the mean of the data.
Results: In the studied pools, the minimum residual chlorine content was measured at zero and the maximum value of 5 mg/L was measured. The pH of the pools was in most cases near neutral and more alkaline (>7). In the main pools, there was no significant difference between the mean of measured parameters with regard to different seasons (P> 0.05). Correlation analysis indicated a significant inverse relationship between residual chlorine and water temperature in these pools (R = -0.694, p<0.01).Considering the total residual chlorine, the water temperature and ambient temperature, there was a mismatch with the optimal range of standards approved by the Ministry of Health in 26% of the main pools, 93% of Jacuzzi pools, 95% of chiller pools and 30% of children's pools.
Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it was revealed that the limits and recommended standards for residual chlorine, pH, pool temperature and ambient temperature in the pool environment are not observed in four types of main, Jacuzzi, chiller, and children pools examined in Tabriz. Particularly, in the case of Jacuzzi and chiller pools, the present situation was more unfavorable in terms of residual chlorine and water pH compared to other types, which requires serious attention.