Shift works impact on health outcomes of a non hazardousindustrial employees
John Kirubakaran, Rabiya Ahamedi, Urvasi Palli, Magharla Dasaratha Djanaraju, Qudsia Fathima, Sririama Teja Makineedi
Sleep and Hypnosis: A Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopathology 2019;21(4):302-308
Working time is the period of time that a personspends at paid labour. For every shift our body needs to adopt to theexternal changes. This may cause dreadful disruption of circadian rhythm whichmaintains all the biological responses including sleep-wake cycle, hormoneinduction-inhibition, hunger, growth and other cellular processes. Hence preventing the disruption of thecircadian rhythm can prevent the disturbances in biological responses. The specific objectives include numerating the workingpattern of general and shifting workers. To compare food habits, incidence of varioushealth effects such as Cardiovascular risks, Sleep wake disorders,Endocrinological disorders (Diabetes, Cholesterol), Obesity, BMI, BloodPressure among general and shift workers. An observational prospective study was carriedout by approaching the workers, by a standard questionnaire which was designed to collectthe data of the employees from the company and data was analyzed usingstatistical software. The observed values have shown that out of 302 workersgeneral workers were 112 and shift workers were 190 and P-value <0.001 whichis found to be significant. This study shows that the diabetic status, sleepdisorders, appetite and GERD disturbances of the workers are dependent on theshift pattern being followed by them. There was a significant difference between shift and general workers interms of Glucose levels, Blood Pressure, Total Cholesterol levels and GITdisturbances. Conclusion of our studyrevealed that prople working in shifts tend to have higher risk of prevalenceof disorders such as Hypertension (Blood Pressure compared), Diabetes (RandomBlood Sugar compared), Sleep and GIT disturbances. Body Mass Index, Total cholesterollevels of both general and shift workers did not show any high significancewhen compared. Therisk of metabolic disorders was higher among those working in shift work ratherthan in the general workers.
Keywords:
Shift Work, Circadian Rhythm, Endocrinological disorder, Obesity, Blood Pressure, occupational health.