Lipid disorders among male factory shift workers in Kota Bharu, Kelantan

Shift work is associated with various health problems and there is concern that shift workers are at higher risk to develop dyslipidaemia. A cross-sectional study was conducted from December 2003 to May 2004 to compare the prevalence of dyslipidaemia (hypercholesterolaemia, hypertriglyceridaemia, hyper-LDL and hypo-HDL-cholesterolaemia) and to examine the relationship between shift work and dyslipidaemia among 148 randomly selected male workers from one of the factories in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Information on psychosocial and life-style factors, anthropometric and blood pressure measurement, fasting blood sugar and lipid profiles analyses were obtained. In multiple variable analysis, the presence of any abnormalities in the lipid profiles was regarded as having dyslipidaemia. The prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia (47.4%) and hypertriglyceridaemia (42.1%) were significantly higher among shift workers compared to day workers with p-value of 0.014 and 0.044 respectively. There was no significant different in the prevalence of hyper-LDL and hypo-HDL-cholesterolaemia and shift work was not significantly associated with dyslipidaemia, OR(adj) = 1.27; 95% CI 0.63-2.57.