Omprakash Gopal Rao

Instructor: Brandy Conrad

BIOL 1615 (BS): College Biology I Lab

16th February 2017

Occupational Injuries related to Sleepiness in Indian Traditional Industries

Introduction

In any workplace, especially occupations that is industrial, manual labor, and operation of

heavy machinery, there is an increased risk for accidents to happen. Scientists know there is an

increased recognition that poor sleeping habits can be directly related to increased risk of injury

at work. Fatigue leads to unintentional human error and decreased job performance which leads

to mistakes and increased accidents and injuries. In this article, Ajeet Jaiswal conducted a study

to determine whether there was a direct correlation between poor sleeping habits or fatigue and

amount of occupational accidents in the workplace in Indian traditional industries. Also, the

scientists and researchers are examining to determine the causes for these workers to have poor

sleeping habits. Researchers analyzed the influences leading to poor sleep including stress,

working long hours, shift work, poor working conditions, physical/psychological disease, and

unhealthy lifestyle such as smoking and alcohol consumption. Therefore, this leads to an

unpredictable sleep cycle and loss of job satisfaction. Among Indian traditional industries, this is

a common problem which leads to increased work injuries. This is important in our world

because this situation of poor sleep and increased injuries at work is an issue of concern for

everyone in every workplace and becoming more common. The researchers analysis and

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experiments done by other scientists concluded are: (a) the higher levels of fatigue caused by the

lack of sleep and (b) inability to fall asleep at night which causes shut down of electrical activity

in specific areas of the brain. This is especially prominent in parts related to situational

awareness and problem solving. Thus, Jaiswal hypothesized and conducted this study to

determine the relationship between the level of fatigue and the amount of injuries at work to use

to try to prevent these occupational injuries.

Materials and Methods

Jaiswal performed his cross-sectional study through questionnaires that were self-rating

that was distributed among small scale industries in two District of Uttar Pradesh, India from

May to December of 2008. From these small-scale industries in India, workers were casually

chosen to participate in the questionnaire. The workers were expected to answer the questions

involving demographics, working conditions, environment, lifestyle habits, about their sleeping

habits, level of fatigue, symptoms of depression, physiological diseases, and if they have had an

occupational injury. The results were collected and were specifically categorized in pre-chosen

categories that the workers had to choose from. The cumulative data was used to find

percentages of the answer in the classifications. From the findings based on the percentage,

researchers examined to find correlations between the number of injures and the sleeping habits.

Results

The results were compiled and were statistically analyzed to determine if there was a

relationship between the level of sleepiness and the amounts of occupational injuries. Jaiswal

received an approximate 77% response rate from the questionnaires distributed in the industries.

This contained 920 workers, which about 28% of them had sustained an occupational injury in

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the past year. It was reported that, 39% had sleeping problems, ranging from difficulty falling

asleep to difficulty remaining asleep with having less than six hours of sleep the night before.

Also about 46.9% of the workers reported that sleep during the work week was definitely and/or

somewhat insufficient. The statistical results indicated that there is a substantial prevalence for

workers who have sleeping problems to also experience a workplace injury as per the study

demonstrates that the sleep problems such as difficulty initiating sleep, sleeping poorly at

night, sleep insufficiency and insomnia symptoms are moderately but significantly associated

with the occurrence of occupational injuries in small and medium-scale enterprises (Jaiswal,

2012, p. 257).

Discussion

In this analytical study, the results are consistent with those of previous studies with

occupational injuries and their relation to fatigue. It has shown a significant risk to increased

occupational injury among small scale industries in India. It is concluded by these scientists that

the higher levels of fatigue and lack of sleep, promotes a higher risk for an occurrence for an

occupational injury as a result of a worker is less aware of their surroundings and slower to react

to dangerous situations. Also, insomnia symptoms were found to be the biggest risk factor

associated with occupational injuries. Jaiswal indicates that the amount of data received from this

study is enough to formulate a conclusion. However, it would be more helpful to conduct more

studies in different occupation sectors in other parts of the world. The limitations of this study is

that it was cross-sectional, which means that it was only able to determine associations and not

direct relationships. Also, other factors such as exercise habits and number of hours of work

performed in a week could have had an impact in fatigue that was left out of the study. The

hypothesis was right and aligned with similar studies that were done by other scientists.

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 Work Cited

Jaiswal, A. (2012). Occupational Injuries related to Sleepiness in Indian Traditional Industries.

Human Biology Review, 248-267.