Lack of Knowledge on Job Heaviness May Cause Occupational Stress in Welders While Working Under Hostile Work Environment in a Public Domain

Abstract

This research tries to find out the cardiac load during preworking, working and post-working period of electric arc welders who are engaged in fabricating job for Periodical Over Hauling (POH) in mechanical workshop of Government sector. Their working heart rate (WHR) reflects that the job category is in the range of very heavy to extremely heavy. The hostile working environment with a mean air velocity of 0.1 ms-1 throughout the year and unscientific working posture also increases the adverse effect on workers’ health due to their occupation. The work rest regimen also should be rectified as per recommendation of American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienist (ACGIH). Due to hostile nature of environment in the site, the effective hours should be less as compared to that of previous effective hours in respect of work-rest scheduling recommended by ACGIH. So it seems that environmental unfriendliness has a huge role in varying productive hours during the work-shift. The Resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate at site (HRS) and Pre working heart rate (PWHR) values of the welders of age less than forty years and greater than forty years are respectively 86, 94 100 bpm and 83, 97, 111 bpm. The WHR of the senior group is 126bpm which is quite greater than the other group which is 108bpm and it reflects on the vast range of peak Heart rate (HR) from (96-130) bpm for the junior group and (95-223) bpm for the senior group. The Net cardiac cost (NCC) value of the age group of below 40 years is 22bpm, whereas the other group is 43bpm. The % of Relative cardiac cost (RCC) value are 22 % and 55 % respectively for junior and senior group which reflects very significance difference. The Energy Expenditure values i.e. 4 kcal/min for junior group and 5 kcal/min for senior group also reflects the high strain among the seniors than the age group of below 40 years. It is seen from the study made for occupational fatigue applying Brouha’s standard index that all the workers are in ‘No Recovery’ group Similarly the energy cost of the welders are heavy in nature. Higher energy demand of the task makes it harder to execute continuously in expected pace. Environmental heat load at the work field imposes extra load on the workforces. The ET value is above the permissible heat exposure limits as suggested by World Health organization (WHO). As a consequence the body of the working personnel in above than 40 years group is observed to be affected much more than that of the less than 40 years group. A little bit of ergonomic approach along with engineering control and workers sincerity may improve this situation which reflects on workers’ health and productivity index in the near future.