Ship Breaking Workers and Their Pattern of Work-Related Respiratory Problems: A Cross-sectional Study at Sitakunda...

A cross-sectional study was conducted from March 2019 to August 2019 to determine the pattern of work-related respiratory problems among workers in ship breaking industry at Sitakunda, Chittagong, Bangladesh as many unskilled and semiskilled worker are working there without having minimum knowledge and idea about the possible adverse health effect of different pollutants which also pose threats to the ambient environment. Total 120 male respondents were selected purposively. Majority 80.8% (97) of the workers were below 30 years. About 71.0% (85) respondents were working for less than five years. Majority of respondents worked 8 hours daily. Most of them worked each of the days in a week. About 66.0% (80) had smoking habit. Among 120 respondents, 95.8% (115) had no previous respiratory problem. But 63.3% (76) felt that their respiratory problems were increasing day by day due to current job (ship breaking). There were 85.0% (102) respondents who felt cold or sneeze mostly in working place. About 80.0% (96) of respondents felt better during holiday. There were different respiratory symptoms among the respondents like nasal irritation, hoarseness of voice, cough during cold, cough without cold, bringing up phlegm when catch cold, bringing up phlegm without cold, tightness of chest where the prevalence was 54.2% (65), 85.0% (102), 93.3% (112), 28.3% (34), 70.0% (84), 39.0% (27) and 67.5% (81) respectively among the workers. Majority respondents 96.7% (116) were conscious about using PPE. Only 17.5% (21) used mask during work. Different pulmonary lung function test like forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), FEV1%, peak expiratory flow rate (PFER) was done. Mean of FVC, FEV1 was 3.76 and 1.09 respectively. According to pulmonary statuses of workers as per spirometric findings 20.83% (25) had normal pulmonary function, 58.33% (45) had obstruction and 20.83% (25) had combined obstructive parameters. So in light of the study it is clear that the work organization has not developed in this particular industry. In every steps of their work ship breaking workers are facing violations of industrial codes which correspond with safe working environment. In long run the workers have to pay with their health and life about which they are unaware.