Prevalence of Chronic Respiratory Symptoms and Associated Factors among Woodwork Workers in Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia; a Comparative Cross-Sectional Study

Exposure to wood dust can cause respiratory symptoms, like cough, phlegm, breathlessness, and chest pain, reduce lung function. The objective of the study was to assess the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and associated factors among woodwork workers in Bahir-Dar city, Ethiopia. A comparative cross-sectional study was employed among 229 exposed and 228 unexposed groups. Participants for the study were selected using simple random sampling technique. The chronic respiratory symptoms were assessed using a questionnaire adopted from the American Thoracic Society. The data was entered using Epi-Data version 4.6 and export to SPSS version 22 for analysis. Poisson regression, Multivariate linear regression and multivariable logistic regression analysis were used to identify factors associated with woodworkers, general population and in pooled analysis. The prevalence of having at least one chronic respiratory symptom was higher among exposed group (59.4