Spirometric measurements in employees of old brick factories in Najaf Province

الملخص EN

Sirometric measurements were done for (113)workers employed in five old fashion brick factories located in Najaf Province .Spirometric measurements were also done for (98) control subjects.

The measurements included forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in first second (FEV1), forced expiratory volume ratio (FEV %) and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR).

The subjects investigated in the study were divided into four groups based on their duration of employment.

Anthropometric data were collected for the participants, and questionnaires regarding respiratory diseases whether professionally diagnosed diseases or the common symptoms suggestive of them were applied to every participant whether being a worker or control subjects.

Subjects with known or suspected respiratory disease on the basis of these questionnaires were excluded from the study It was found that workers of the five brick factories scored lower values of the four spirometric variables than the control subjects and the differences were statistically significant.

Significant differences were also found among workers with different work duration in years with the workers group of 11-15 years of employment scoring the lowest values.

It was concluded that workers engaged in the brick manufacturing industry are at risk of developing obstructive ventilatory impairment and/or restrictive ventilatory impairment and the degree of this impairment directly correlates with the duration of the employment.