Article Sidebar
Published:
Mar 19, 2020Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publication rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Note: If you need to comply with your funding body policy, you can apply for the CC BY license after your manuscript is accepted for publication.
Main Article Content
Cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors of shift workers within the automotive industry
Abstract
Background: Previous research highlighted the importance of identifying the modifiable risk factors among shift workers in specific industries to take effective preventative and therapeutic steps to decrease the risks associated with non-communicable chronic diseases.
Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk factors among shift workers within the automotive industry.
Setting: This study was conducted at a car manufacturing company in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional quantitative design. Body mass index was calculated, and the American College for Sports Medicine classification for normal weight, overweight and obesity was used to assess the weight status of the workers. Fasting blood glucose and cholesterol as well as blood pressure (BP) were also measured.
Results: Seventy-five automotive shift workers participated in the research. Twenty-three per cent of the participants had no risk factors, 30.6% had one risk factor, 34.7% had two risk factors and only 5.3% exhibited four risk factors. Sixty-six percent of participants were classified as either pre-obese or obese, while 55% were hypertensive. Systolic BP (r = 0.258; p < 0.05), diastolic BP (r = 0.342; p < 0.01), cholesterol (r = 0.258; p < 0.05) and age (r = 0.271; p < 0.05) significantly correlated with body mass index.
Conclusion: This study highlights the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases among employees in the automotive industry. However, it does not show any risk factors for metabolic diseases.
Keywords: cardiovascular disease; metabolic; risk factors; cholesterol; glucose; automotive industry; shift workers.
