Aminian O, Hashemi S, Sadeghniiat-Haghighi K, Shariatzadeh A, Naseri Esfahani AH. Psychomotor effects of mixed organic solvents on rubber workers.
Int J Occup Environ Med 2014;
5:78-83. [PMID:
24747998 PMCID:
PMC7767612]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2013] [Accepted: 02/24/2014] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Exposure to organic solvents is common among workers.
OBJECTIVE
To assess neurobehavioral effects of long-term exposure to organic solvents among rubber workers in Tehran, Iran.
METHODS
Across-sectional study was conducted on 223 employees of a rubber industry. The participants completed a data collection sheet on their occupational and medical history, and demographic characteristics including age, work experience, education level; they performed 6 psychiatric tests on the neurobehavioral core test battery (NCTB) that measure simple reaction time, short-term memory (digit span, Benton), eye-hand coordination (Purdue pegboard, pursuit aiming), and perceptual speed (digit symbol).
RESULTS
Workers exposed and not exposed to organic solvents had similar age and education distribution. The mean work experience of the exposed and non-exposed workers was 5.9 and 4.4 years, respectively. The exposed workers had a lower performance compared to non-exposed workers in all psychomotor tests. After controlling for the confounders by logistic regression analysis, it was found that exposure to organic solvents had a significant effect on the results of digit symbols, digit span, Benton, aiming, and simple reaction time tests. No significant effect was observed in pegboard test.
CONCLUSION
Occupational exposure to organic solvent can induce subtle neurobehavioral changes among workers exposed to organic solvents; therefore, periodical evaluation of the central nervous system by objective psychomotor tests is recommended among those who are chronically exposed to organic solvents.
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