The prevalence of fatigue, sleepiness, and sleep disorders among petrochemical employees in Iran

ABSTRACT

Background: Fatigue, sleepiness, and sleep disorders adversely impact workers’ health, safety, and performance.

Purpose: The present study aimed to assess the relationship between fatigue and sleep problems in petrochemical workers in Iran.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 501 randomly selected employees of the petrochemical industry participated. The Persian version of Swedish Occupational Fatigue Inventory (P-SOFI-20) and the Persian version of Occupational Fatigue/Exhaustion Recovery (P-OFFER-15) were used to assess fatigue dimensions. Severity of sleepiness was measured by the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS).

Results: The petrochemical employees reported moderate levels of fatigue. The results also revealed that mean scores on different fatigue dimensions were significantly higher among those who had sleep disorders as compared to individuals without sleep disorders (P < 0.001). The KSS data showed that these employees also suffered from sleepiness. Significant positive relationships were found between sleepiness and fatigue (P-SOFI-20).

Conclusions: Petrochemical employees suffered from fatigue and sleepiness concurrently. As such, employees’ health, safety and productivity may be adversely affected.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatigue
• petrochemical industry
• sleep disorders
• sleepiness

Acknowledgments

This article was extracted from the thesis written by Ms. Fouzieh Javadpour, M.Sc. student of Occupational Health Engineering at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS). Hereby, the authors wish to thank the HSE managers of the two petrochemical industries studied and all employees who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the SUMS [grant number 92-6598 ].

Notes on contributors

Alireza Choobineh

Alireza Choobineh is a professor of Occupational Health and Ergonomics at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz/Iran.

Fouzieh Javadpour

Fouzieh Javadpour is a master student of Occupational Health at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz/Iran.

Hiva Azmoon

Hiva Azmoon was a Ph.D. candidate of Occupational Health at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz/Iran. He passed away in late 2016.

Sareh Keshavarzi

Sareh Keshavarzi is a Ph.D. holder in Biostatistics and a mid-career professional with several years of research experience in academia.

Hadi Daneshmandi

Hadi Daneshmandi is a Ph.D. candidate of Ergonomics at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz/Iran.