BACKGROUND
Shift work has been reported to lead to adverse health effects and is receiving increased attention.
OBJECTIVE
The study aimed to understand the relationship between shift work schedules and health behaviours among day-shift workers and rotating day-evening-shift workers and to detect the difference between day-shift work or fixed day-shift and rotating day-evening-shift employees.
METHODS
A cross-sectional study was conducted among employees of Petrochemical Company during 2021. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. It consisted of two parts demographic data and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28).
RESULTS
Out of 126 employees, 58 (46.0%) were from group age 41-50 years, 55 (43.7%) were overweight and 41 (32.5%) were obese, 38 (30.2%) were smokers, 99 (78.6%) worked in fixed shift. Two thirds 94 (74.6%) reported 6-8 sleeping hours per day, where 41 (32.5%) reported that they were satisfactory about overall quality of sleep and 40 (31.7%) were somewhat unsatisfactory, 62 (49.2%) reported “playing regular moderate to vigorous exercise”. There was no significant relation between shifts type and general health status (p =0.122). There was a significant association between shift types and the following ; age, BMI, education, nationality, household income, Working experience, Chronic diseases, Frequency of shift work, and Overall amount of sleep per day (p<0.0001, p0.017, p=0.027, p<0.0001, p0.042, p=0.002, p=0.024, p<0.0001, and p=0.044).
CONCLUSIONS
In the current study, rotating shifts were associated with extra sleeping hours, normal weight and having exercise. There was no significant differences in general health between workers in different shift schedules. Further studies need to be conducted to gather more information in order to decrease the additional health burden allied to non-standard work-schedules.