Relationship of shift work with endoscopic gastritis among workers of an electronics company

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The current study aimed to examine the cross-sectional association between shift work and gastritis using endoscopic evaluation. METHODS: We collected questionnaire data from 964 non-shift workers and 290 shift workers aged 22–40 years at an electronics company, comprising age, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, occupational stress, and gastrointestinal symptoms. We performed a gastroendoscopy of participants. Along with describing the gastroendoscopic results, we analyzed the correlations between gastritis and shift work using multiple logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: In terms of gastrointestinal symptoms, night shift workers complained more of indigestion than non-shift workers (P<0.01), and the rate of gastritis was higher. The odds of gastritis was significantly higher among shift workers after adjusting for covariates. The odds ratio (OR) for gastritis was 2.24 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.47–3.43] in shift workers compared with non-shift workers. Among seven subtypes of gastritis, only superficial gastritis was significantly associated with shift work (OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.12–2.24). CONCLUSIONS: We found that shift workers experience gastritis more than non-shift workers as well as more gastrointestinal symptoms, particularly indigestion. Using endoscopic findings, our study supports that shift work negatively affects the gastrointestinal system.

Keywords

• shift work
• shift worker
• association
• endoscopic gastritis
• gastritis
• indigestion
• gastrointestinal symptom
• gastroendoscopy