A Survey of Work-related Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Hospital Employees

• Main Authors: Liang, Sheng-Yao, 梁升耀
• Other Authors: Lee, Su-hsing
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/26297304793066373181

碩士 === 長榮大學 === 職業安全與衛生學系碩士在職專班 === 105 === Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) is a musculoskeletal injury caused by improper working activities. Previous studies have shown that health care industry is a high risk group of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, therefore this study aimed at hospital staff to explore the prevalence of WMSDs in upper limbs and related risk factors as a reference for injury prevention. In this study, we used the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) to assess the problem of upper limb musculoskeletal injuries and collect potential risk factors such as job factors, personal factors, psychosocial factors and working conditions. A total of 700 questionnaires were distributed to the hospital workers and 675 (96.4%) returned. The results showed that the prevalence of upper limb musculoskeletal discomforts was 82.8% among these hospital staff. The prevalence was 72% in the shoulder, 62.7% in the necks, 32.4% in the wrists, 29.2% in the hands and 22.5% in the elbows. The extent of discomforts, to the degree of severe or extremely serious, was as the followings: wrists (26.1%), hands (25.2%), elbows (18.8%), shoulders (3.1%) and necks (2.6%). Stepwise analysis showed gender, age, BMI, education, sleep, self-conscious quality of life, work experience, workload, job types, the use of heavy manual tools, upper arm lifting, weight pushing, inappropriate height of working desk/chair and the psychological workload were important risk predictors for upper limb musculoskeletal discomforts, especially height of working desk/chair were at the same time associated with the discomforts of necks, wrists, hands and elbows. Although the hospital staff in this study reported higher prevalence of discomforts over necks and shoulders areas, yet from the perspectives of severity, prevalence over wrists and hands was even higher than that of necks and shoulders. We suggest the hospital should set priorities to find these staff with wrist and hand discomforts and assist them aggressively. In addition, we found that improper height of working desk/chair was at the same time related to necks, wrists, hands and elbows. It indicated that these workplaces are somewhat lack of concept in ergonomic design. Hospital management or the occupational safety and health departments should face this problem and re-examine current ergonomic prevention programs in accordance with the Occupational Safety and Health Act.