Majority of people who work in laboratory on infectious agents are prone to various work related disorders. This affects the overall output coming from an individual in their workplace. Musculoskeletal pains may arise due to the posture attained at work place for long period of time or wearing heavy outfit required to work in negative atmospheric pressure. Stress could be due to increase in the work or issues with the staff. Reduced physical fitness due to lack of physical activity along with various co-morbid factors such as obesity, hypertension and sedentary lifestyle, can cause lifelong disease.
Thirty laboratory workers were selected for cross sectional survey. Study design was assessment and questionnaire based. Subjects filled Nordic and Perceived stress questionnaire. Following assessments were done on the subjects like Harvard step test, Partial curl-up test, Push-up test, Squat test, Peak Expiratory Flow rate measurement. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Version 13.
About 33% of the subjects were suffering from hypertension. None of the subjects had diabetes and 56.7% of the subjects had abnormal B.M.I (p<0.05). Significantly higher proportion of the subjects had normal perceived stress score (p<0.05). Majority of the group had poor Harvard score (p<0.001) and abnormal PEFR readings (p<0.001).Upper extremity strength was also less (p>0.05), where as abdominal (p<0.05) and lower extremity strength (p<0.001) was good. No back or knee pain was reported in Nordic Questionnaire (p<0.05) in last one year. Even though lab-workers were healthy for their age, on doing physical tests, lot of them were found to have decreased cardiovascular endurance, reduced lung capacity, and muscular endurance. Their B.M.I was also on higher side. All this could be attributed to their sedentary lifestyle at place of work.
Lab workers need to improve their cardiovascular endurance, lung volumes, B.M.I and upper extremity strength.
Lab-Workers, Physical Fitness, Harvard Step Test, Peak Expiratory Flow Rate Measurement, And Perceived Stress Score
