A Study on the Alcohol Beverages Drinking Effect on Potential CTS Symptoms

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is an illness, not an injury, and health factors such as obesity, smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, diabetes, and thyroid disease are much more likely to contribute substantially to the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome than workplace activities. CTS are considered as a clinical entity and diagnosis is still based upon symptoms of numbness, tingling and/or burning in the distribution of the median nerve in the hand. The present study has been conducted among personnel engaged in connecting rod manufacturing workers, to check the susceptibility to CTS symptoms by classifying the workers on the basis of drunkard and non-drunkard. The population included all the manufacturing unit workers irrespective of age, gender or ethnic group. All full-time workers with at least 6 months on the job were invited to participate in the study. Of the 113 eligible workers, 103 agreed to participate (91%) in the study. So a sample size of 103 workers was used (N = 103). In the statistical analysis of Chi-square and odds ratio test revealed that alcohol drunkard worker has 2.62 times greater risk of having CTS symptoms as compared to non-drunkard workers. Hence, there is a significant difference amongst the number of CTS sufferers in non-drunkard and drunkard group.