Self-Reported Pain and Physical Signs for Musculoskeletal Disorders in the Upper Body Region Among Los Angeles Garment Workers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Harrison RJ ; Hurwitz EL ; Janowitz I ; Rempel DM ; Ritz BR ; Wang PC
• Description:
  Reports of pain and physical exam findings for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are two common outcome measures independently used to assess work-related MSDs in the scientific literature. How these measures correlate with each other, however, is largely unknown. We recruited 520 sewing machine operators to describe the correlation between subjective self-reported pain and physical findings of MSDs in three upper body regions including the neck/shoulder, elbow/forearm, and hand/wrist. Self-reports of pain and physical findings resulted in different and partly non-overlapping classifications of subjects as MSD cases in our study. Both outcome measures were found to be consistently associated with 'having a medical history of MSDs', 'perceived physical exertion', 'perceived job insecurity' (neck/shoulder), being of older age (arm/forearm), and female gender (arm/forearm and hand/wrist); however, we observed inconsistency for the measures for a number of other job related factors such as 'operating a single machine' and 'number of work hours per week'. Because to date no agreed upon "gold standard" for diagnosing MSDs exists, our findings suggest that research results can be very different when using self-reported measures versus physical exam findings. Also, in order to evaluate the success of an intervention, screening, or surveillance program for work related MSDs, it is important to define clearly which outcome measure best to employ. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Ergonomics Manufacturing And Industrial Facilities Musculoskeletal Diseases Musculoskeletal System Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Agreement Correlation Equipment-operators Machine-operation Machine-shop-workers Motion-studies Musculoskeletal-system-disorders Physical-stress Physical Examination Physical Sign Physiological-disorders Physiological-factors Posture Work Organization

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• ISSN:
  1051-9815
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  79-87
• Volume:
  34
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20036519
• Citation:
  Work 2009 Sep; 34(1):79-87
• Contact Point Address:
  Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2009
• Performing Organization:
  University of California - Los Angeles
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20020930
• Source Full Name:
  Work
• End Date:
  20060929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:df4f51c4bdbad80b45102f24d91f3955ebd1af9b56904e32d3050a0b4e098b1997e1c2a549f8eb6450e0cd7fbdc0cb9e869b3456535df53e21c7fe9b8a91ccc6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187908/cdc_187908_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 69.01 KB ]