Correlation Between Serum and Tear Fluid Interleukin 6 Levels in Day and Night Shift Health Care Workers

Abstract

Night shift work is associated with several long-term health complications including metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease along with various adverse health effects. This study was planned and conducted to learn the impact of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a chronic inflammatory cytokine among day and night shift health care workers, and to correlate the relationship between the serum and tear fluid IL 6 in day and night shift healthcare workers at a tertiary care hospital. This is a Cross-Sectional study with 100 (fifty-day shift and fifty-night shift) participants including medical, paramedical students, and lab technicians. Blood and tear samples were collected from both groups. SPSS version 26.0 was used to analyze the data using Pearson’s correlation, chi-square test, and ROC. An Independent student’s t-test was used to examine the differences between the mean scores. p-value < 0.05 is considered significant. Serum and tear IL-6 levels were significantly increased in night shift workers when compared to day shift workers with p-value < 0.0001. There was a positive correlation between tear and serum IL-6 levels (r value 0.732 and 0.624) among day and night shift workers respectively. A high prevalence of dry eye syndrome in night shift workers (40%) when compared to day shift workers (14%). In ROC analysis, tear IL-6 shows the highest area under the curve (0.935) compared to serum IL-6 (0.883) which reveals the superiority of tear fluid analysis and suggests that tear fluid can be used as a minimally invasive technique to analyze IL-6 alternative to serum IL-6 analysis. This study concludes that tear and serum Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is proportionately increased in night shift workers compared to day shift workers. It also suggests that tear fluid can be used as a minimally invasive technique and a superior method to analyze IL-6.