Neuropsychiatric Symptoms of Workers Exposed to 2-Bromopropane

Choi, Kyeong Sook; Chun, Byung Yeol; Park, Jung Sun; Kim, Yang Ho; Moon, Young Hahn

Abstract

To investigate the impact of 2-bromopropane on neuropsychiatric symptoms, 33 exposed workers and 77 non-exposes workers in electronic company were recruited. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were assessed using self-administered questionnaire. Memory disturbance, concentration disturbance, sleep disturbance, understanding disturbance and acute irritation symptom were more frequent in workers exposed to 2-bromopropane. To investigate the association between 2-bromopropane exposure and neuropsychiatric symptoms, total symptom scores of exposed workers were compared with those of non-exposed workers. Mean value in the exposed workers was significantly higher than that of non-exposed comparisons. The mean value of total symptom score of smokers in exposed workers was significantly higher than that of smokers in non-exposed workers. In multivariate regression analysis, exposure status was significant predictor for total symptom score after controlling the effects of age, sex, education, smoking status and alcohol intake. Above findings suggest that 2-bromopropane was significantly associated with neuropsychiatric symptoms. Therefore, it is recommended that further research with objective assessments and long follow-up should be done to confirm the results of this study.