Abstract
Shift workers of process industries always remain under heavy work pressure while working more efficiently for higher production. In modern work practices, process industries run 24 hours per day due to their process requirement, expensive machineries and to achieve production targets. The main aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of shift work on sleep variables and the body parts affected by Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs). Moreover, it focused on how these problems (sleep and MSDs) affect workers’ productivity and absenteeism. For this study 15 different process industries had been selected. The detailed sleep assorted variables and work related musculoskeletal pain/discomfort had been analyzed in different activities with self administered questionnaire (SAQ). This questionnaire consists of 41 questions related to sleep problems, 38 questions related to MSDs and 17 questions related to absenteeism. Responded rate was 57.84%. The collected data was analyzed shift wise (morning, afternoon, night, general and ‘R’ shift). Intra and inter correlation among the different variables as well as correlation of each variables with absenteeism had been investigated before and after the ergonomic intervention programme (EIP). The results showed that averagely 26.93% workers had been found complaining of sleep problems and 30.36% of night shift workers had been spotted with the problem of MSDs. All sleep and MSDs assorted variables were significantly associated with shift work (p<0.05, p<0.01). The effect of EIP disclosed that the problems related to sleep and MSDs had been found reduced by 5.41% and 4.75% respectively and absenteeism due to sleep and MSDs by 0.93% and 0.83% respectively after EIP. As a result the improvement in worker’s productivity was sought out to be 1.622%.
Highlights
Productivity is an important indicator of economic growth and social health
This study showed the significant association between shift work schedules and sleep variables such as difficulty in initiating sleep (χ2=19.02, p=0.0008), insufficient sleep (χ2=19.02, p=0.0008), feel tiredness (χ2=18.54, p=0.0001)
The inter correlation between Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) and sleep variables shows that pain due to MSDs cause the workers to suffer from sleep disturbance and feel tiredness and the disturbed circadian rhythm due to different shifts leads the musculoskeletal disorder
Summary
Productivity is an important indicator of economic growth and social health It plays a crucial role in describing business opportunities in the society and it can be vital in identifying key factor that are attributed to how healthy (or unhealthy) the working population is. Human capital plays an important part in the growth of economy At micro level, it affects the productivity. Shift workers might work in evening, middle of night, over time or extra long work days. They might work regular days at one time or another. Many shift workers rotate around the clock, which involves changing work times from day to evening or day to night
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