Shift work and the risk of cardiovascular disease among workers in cocoa processing company, Tema

Abstract

Objective

Shift work has been implicated in cardiovascular disease (CVD), a major cause of death globally. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk of developing CVD in shift work.

Design

A cross-sectional study involving secondary analysis of shift and non-shift work from an industry in Ghana.

Participants

Two hundred (113 shift and 87 non-shift) consecutive workers who consented were recruited into the study. A structured questionnaire was administered to deduce information on participant’s age, alcohol consumption pattern, smoking habits, history of diabetes, stroke and hypertension.

Results

Shift workers were found to be associated with higher body mass index (26.9 ± 4.6 vs 25.2 ± 3.3, p = 0.013); fasting blood glucose (5.9 ± 1.8 vs 5.3 ± 0.8, p ≤ 0.0001); glycated haemoglobin (4.9 ± 0.9 vs 4.2 ± 0.8, p ≤ 0.0001); high sensitivity C-reactive protein (2.5 ± 1.1 vs 1.8 ± 1.1, p < 0.0001); total cholesterol (5.9 ± 1.3 vs 5.2 ± 1.7, p = 0.002); triglycerides (1.3 ± 0.8 vs 1.1 ± 0.6, p = 0.015) and LDL cholesterol (3.6 ± 0.9 vs 3.2 ± 1.3, p = 0.04) than controls. Shift work however, had no associations with HDL-cholesterol.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that shift work is associated with risk factors of CVD.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1750-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.