Neck and shoulder ailments in a group of female industrial workers with monotonous work

The aim of the present paper was to study the comprehension of exposure to different physical and psyche-social factors at work, at home and during leisure time and the lifestyle of a group of unskilled female workers, and also their reports of musculoskeletal ailments, especially in the neck, shoulders and thoracic back. Furthermore an evaluation of the relevance of the methods used and the validity of the results are discussed. One hundred and seventy-three women, aged 20-45 years, from, in total, 26 large, medium-sized and small enterprises in three counties in Sweden participated in the study. Each woman answered a questionnaire in the presence of the project leader in a separate room close to her workplace. The questionnaires comprised questions on demographic, work-related and domestic factors; smoking habits, lifestyle and level of physical activity, leisure activities, health status and musculoskeletal problems. The prevalence of musculoskeletal ailments and the smoking habits among the 173 women was compared to a group of 153 women of the same age from the general population. The environmental factors reported as being most disturbing at work were noise, temperature and humidity, and the most frequent adverse physical factors were repetition of movements, precision and uncomfortable posture. The women in the studied group were largely responsible for domestic tasks such as laundry, cleaning and cooking but to a greater extent shared the responsibility for the children with their partners. The highest prevalence of ailments in the study group were in the neck (68%) and shoulders (74%); in the group from the general population these prevalences were 35 and 42%, respectively. The relevance of methods used and the validity of the results were found to be acceptable. Copyright (C) 1996 British Occupational Hygiene Society.