Multivariate logistic regression analysis on influence factors of cold water rewarming rate among hand-transmitted vibration workers

Objective To assess the hand-transmitted vibration hazards and roughly analyze the affecting factors of cold water rewarming rate among workers exposed to the hand-transmitted vibration. Methods The workers exposed to hand-transmitted vibration from 5 companies in Guangdong Province were studied. The vibration levels and cold water rewarming rates were measured. The general information,including working history and personal status,were collected with the questionnaire. The correlation between gender,age, smoking, drinking, hypertension, dose of vibration,different positions and the abnormal rate of cold water rewarming was analyzed. Results Vibration levels A(4) were detected in 48 operating sites and 31 of them were not compliant with the national standard of 5 m/s². Compared with the international A(8)grading standards,28 operation sites were ranked as ones with grade I (or high) risk. Single factor chi-square analysis showed that the abnormal cold water rewarming was significantly different among age,smoking,hypertension,and dose of vibration (P < 0.05), Logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratio(OR) of cold water rewarming rate was,respectively,1.865(P < 0.05) for workers older than 40,2.474 (P < 0.05) for workers with smoking index > 600,1.231(P < 0.05) for hypertension cases,0.395 (P < 0.05) for workers with drinking index ≤ 600,1.232 (P > 0.05) for workers exposed to middle level of variation and 2.135(P > 0.05) for workers exposed to high level of variation. Conclusion The hazard of hand-transmitted vibration in the companies being surveyed was severe. Age, smoking, hypertension were the risk factors of the abnormal cold water rewarming and drinking index ≤ 600 was the protective factor. There was no significant correlation between the exposure level of vibration and abnormal cold water rewarming.