Assessment Of Prevalence Of Chronic Respiratory Symptoms And Lung Function Among Fuel Station Workers In Addis Abeba Ethiopia.

Background: Fuel station workers are continuously exposed to organic and inorganicrnchemicals present in the petrol and diesel fuel. Occupational exposure of petroleumrnproduct and its exhaust are causing significant health damage to the airways and thernlung tissue. Respiratory health study among exposed fuel station workers is notrnavailable in Ethiopia. rnObjective: To assess prevalence of chronic respiratory symptoms and associated factorsrnand determining the lung function status among fuel station and security service givingrnagency workers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.rn Methods: Comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from February–Aprilrn2019. A total of 394 workers from fuel station and security service giving agency wererninterviewed using standard questionnaire to assess chronic respiratory symptoms.rnSpirometer test was performed for 100 workers. Four companies; National Oil Ethiopia,rnTotal Ethiopia, Libiya Oil Ethiopia and Yetebaberut were identified to select study unit.rnThe sample size of the study proportionally distributed to each of the company’s basedrnon their number of workers they had at the time of the data collection. Individual gasrnstations were selected randomly by each stratum of Oil Company. All workers, from thernselected station, those fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in the studyrnpopulation. For the comparison group; one security service giving agency was selectedrnand study participant was selected by using systematic random sampling from the payrnroll list. Data was entered using Epi info version 7.2. Data cleaning and analysis wasrnperformed by using SPSS version 23. rnResult The mean age of fuel station and security service giving agency workers werern34.47±8.2 and 32.98 ±9.94 respectively. Fuel station workers had significantly higherrnprevalence rate of chronic respiratory symptoms than security service giving agencyrnworkers (48.7%; PR= 2.1, 95 % CI, 1.43-3.1). Chronic respiratory symptoms amongrnstudy participant were associated significantly with past exposure to dust and petrolrnvapour (AOR= 2.4, 95 % CI = 1.24-4.7), history of past respiratory illness (AOR =rn9.54, 95 % CI, 3.91-23.28) and passive smoking (AOR = 4.21, 95 %CI, 1.19-14.86).rnSignificant reduction in the lung function parameter value of FEV1 and FVC werernobserved among fuel station workers compared to security service giving agencyrnworkers.rnConclusion and recommendation: prevalence of chronic respiratory symptom amongrnfuel station workers was higher when compared with security service giving agency rnxrn rn rnworkers. Past exposure to dust and petrol vapour, past respiratory illness and passivernsmoking significantly associated with development of at least one chronic respiratoryrnsymptom. Lung function parameters; forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratoryrnvolume at one second (FEV1) also decrease significantly among fuel station workersrnrelative to comparative group. The results suggest that there is need to improve healthrnstatus and reduce the exposure level of the workers.

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