A Quasi-Experimental Study of Young Coconut Water in Reducing Fatigue on Construction Workers

Abstract

Excessive sweating will cause the sodium chloride salt content in the body to be excreted along with sweat, thereby inhibiting glucose transport and causing fatigue. The potassium and sugar content of coconut water is known to recover dehydration and reduce fatigue. A Quasi-Experimental method has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of young coconut water in reducing fatigue on construction workers. This experiment employed a hundred workers from two main construction projects in North Sumatra recently. Most of the respondents are a handyman (64%) of productive ages at 36-45 yrs (42%) with less than 5 years experience (72%) doing moderate workload (64%). A non-parametric test showed significant differences in work fatigue among the intervention group with a p-value 0.001, while the control group showed no significant difference with a p-value 0.056. Moreover, the N-Gain score of the intervention group was -13.37 or 13.3%, while in the control group was -0.62. This study was also supported by the quasi analysis on the ages category, years of works, types of work, and workload category, which showed significant differences between pre-test and post-test of the intervention groups. This study suggested the consumption of young coconut water to reduce fatigue due to its nutrient and mineral content.