FATIGUE AMONG ISRAELI INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYEES

We examined the prevalence of fatigue and its association with occupat ional conditions and health-related habits in 3785 industrial employee s of six industrial sectors to define modifiable factors. The factors examined included complaints of fatigue during and after work, an ergo nomic evaluation of employees' workstations, demographic characteristi cs, and health-related habits, Eighteen percent of the subjects compla ined of severe fatigue frequently or very frequently. We were able to identify two major modifiable variables that were independently associ ated with the presence of fatigue. Logistic regression showed that tho se workers who did not participate in physical activity at least once a week had a 1.7-fold increase in prevalence of severe fatigue (95% co nfidence interval = 1.3 to 2.3, P < 0.001), The other major modifiable factor was temperature control, with those workers who worked at non- temperature-controlled workstations having a 50% increase in the preva lence of fatigue (odds ratio = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.1 to 2.1; P = 0.01). Ac cidents were significantly more frequent in those workers with fatigue , Further studies should focus on intervention programs to modify the factors identified by this study.