The prevalence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Women Radiotherapists

Background: Ionizing radiation is one of the hazardous agents in the work place. It can cause serious and irreversible damage to the people exposed to it. Working in such environments can also causes chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of CFS in woman radiotherapists.Methods: This study selected all women exposed to X-ray as the exposed group and nurses working in the same hospital as the control group. The sample size was considered of 36 radiotherapists and 36nurses. Data on demographic characteristics and chronic fatigue syndrome were collected by the questionnaire.Results: The mean CFS score in all participants was 10.64±4.77. About 17.39% of them had fatigue syndrome. About 87% of radiotherapists were working in shift. 8.7% of them in morning shifts, 4.3% in evening shifts, and the rest in alternative shifts. 73.9% of radiotherapists were working higher than 8 hours per day. There was no significant difference between two groups in terms of fatigue syndrome (P=0.47). Radiotherapists with more than 20 image taking per day had higher mean CFS; however, this relationship was not statistically significant (P> 0.05). There was significant correlation between the levels of physical and mental fatigue in the participants and CFS score. Conclusion: Chronic fatigue is multifactorial phenomenon in health care personnel. Workload is more important factor in development of chronic fatigue in radiotherapists

کلیدواژه ها:

Chronic fatigue syndrome ، radiotherapists ، nurses ، occupational exposure ، woman