Risk of Major Cardiovascular Events in Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Workers in Qatar

Abstract

Introduction: Oil and gas workers are exposed to various hazards in the workplace, which increases their risk factors and risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). There have been limited studies on the risk of MACE in workers within the oil and gas industry. Methods: We utilized a cross-sectional approach to analyze data spanning a decade for offshore and onshore workers of an oil and gas corporation in Qatar. By utilizing the Framingham Risk Score (FRS), we evaluated the risk of MACE within both groups. Data was retrieved from the corporation’s electronic medical record. The corporation had 736 offshore workers and 1,041 onshore workers. A sample calculation deter- mined that 48 data samples were required for the offshore workers, which were then rounded up to 50. Similarly, 50 data samples were obtained from the onshore workers for comparison. The samples were selected using a com- puter-generated random sampling method. Two sets of data, namely the first profile (2009) and the second profile (2019), were collected in each sample. The available data were used to compute the risk of MACE. Results: Over a ten-year period, both offshore and onshore workers experienced increased risks of MACE. For offshore workers, the risk escalated from 9.2(8.0)% to 20.4(15.2)%, whereas for onshore workers, the risk increased from 10.0(7.6)% to 17.0(11.0)%. The risk of MACE was found to be significantly greater among offshore workers compared to onshore workers (p=0.011). Conclusion: The deterioration in the risk of MACE was more pronounced among offshore work- ers in comparison to onshore workers.