A short anxiety and depression questionnaire developed by Goldberg et al. was applied to 796 employees of an oil company operating offshore in the North Sea. Anxiety and depression scores were compared in offshore staff and their onshore counterparts at different levels of seniority. These scores were taken to be indicators of stress levels. No statistically significant differences in anxiety or depression scores were identified between groups working onshore or offshore.
This paper reviews the range of health surveillance activities which can be utilized in the workplace by occupational health professionals for assessing fitness for work and contributing to the prevention of occupational illness and promotion of good health. The systematic approach described categorizes health surveillance procedures into occupational or non-occupational, risk-based or unfocused, and as primary, secondary or tertiary preventive measures. All categories of health surveillance are currently being practised to some extent, but the type of surveillance may not match the needs of the workplace in some situation. In order to aid health professionals in deciding which procedures should be implemented, recommendations based on an assessment of health risks are made. The key proposal is to establish a minimum level of periodic health surveillance for all workers based on a targeted lifestyle health risk assessment and a structured health questionnaire. Additional procedures can then be added sequentially as appropriate to manage any health risks in the workplace. The role of the unfocused periodic general medical examination is discussed in the context of the systematic approach and allows occupational professionals to critically appraise its usefulness.
A review was made of 580 staff' identified as currently working offshore for Shell Expro in the Brent Field. Of these 476 had more than one audiogram over their period of employment and were thought to be free of overt otological disease. This cohort was used to look at changes in audiometric performance over the period of their employment offshore by comparing first and most recent audiograms.The changes at 3, 4, and 6kH, the noise susceptible frequencies were averaged for the 2 ears and distributions of mean annual change calculated.
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