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Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers

BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders have a profound impact on individual health, sickness absence and early retirement, particularly in physically demanding occupations. Demographics are changing in the developed countries, towards increasing proportions of senior workers. These senior workers may...

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Autores principales: Lunde, Lars-Kristian, Koch, Markus, Knardahl, Stein, Wærsted, Morten, Mathiassen, Svend Erik, Forsman, Mikael, Holtermann, Andreas, Veiersted, Kaj Bo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25318646
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1075
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author Lunde, Lars-Kristian
Koch, Markus
Knardahl, Stein
Wærsted, Morten
Mathiassen, Svend Erik
Forsman, Mikael
Holtermann, Andreas
Veiersted, Kaj Bo
author_facet Lunde, Lars-Kristian
Koch, Markus
Knardahl, Stein
Wærsted, Morten
Mathiassen, Svend Erik
Forsman, Mikael
Holtermann, Andreas
Veiersted, Kaj Bo
author_sort Lunde, Lars-Kristian
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders have a profound impact on individual health, sickness absence and early retirement, particularly in physically demanding occupations. Demographics are changing in the developed countries, towards increasing proportions of senior workers. These senior workers may have particular difficulties coping with physically demanding occupations while maintaining good health. Previous studies investigating the relationship between physical work demands and musculoskeletal disorders are mainly based on self-reported exposures and lack a prospective design. The aim of this paper is to describe the background and methods and discuss challenges for a field study examining physical demands in construction and health care work and their prospective associations with musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence. METHODS AND DESIGN: This protocol describes a prospective cohort study on 1200 construction and health care workers. Participants will answer a baseline questionnaire concerning musculoskeletal complaints, general health, psychosocial and organizational factors at work, work demands, work ability and physical activity during leisure. A shorter questionnaire will be answered every 6(th) months for a total of two years, together with continuous sickness absence monitoring during this period. Analysis will prospectively consider associations between self-reported physical demands and musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence. To obtain objective data on physical exposures, technical measurements will be collected from two subgroups of N = 300 (Group A) and N = 160 (Group B) during work and leisure. Both group A and B will be given a physical health examination, be tested for physical capacity and physical activity will be measured for four days. Additionally, muscle activity, ground reaction force, body positions and physical activity will be examined during one workday for Group B. Analysis of associations between objectively measured exposure data and the outcomes described above will be done separately for these subpopulations. DISCUSSION: The field study will at baseline produce objectively measured data on physical demands in the construction and health care occupations. In combination with clinical measurements and questionnaire data during follow-up, this will provide a solid foundation to prospectively investigate relationships between physical demands at work and development of musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence.
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spelling pubmed-42038972014-10-22 Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers Lunde, Lars-Kristian Koch, Markus Knardahl, Stein Wærsted, Morten Mathiassen, Svend Erik Forsman, Mikael Holtermann, Andreas Veiersted, Kaj Bo BMC Public Health Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders have a profound impact on individual health, sickness absence and early retirement, particularly in physically demanding occupations. Demographics are changing in the developed countries, towards increasing proportions of senior workers. These senior workers may have particular difficulties coping with physically demanding occupations while maintaining good health. Previous studies investigating the relationship between physical work demands and musculoskeletal disorders are mainly based on self-reported exposures and lack a prospective design. The aim of this paper is to describe the background and methods and discuss challenges for a field study examining physical demands in construction and health care work and their prospective associations with musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence. METHODS AND DESIGN: This protocol describes a prospective cohort study on 1200 construction and health care workers. Participants will answer a baseline questionnaire concerning musculoskeletal complaints, general health, psychosocial and organizational factors at work, work demands, work ability and physical activity during leisure. A shorter questionnaire will be answered every 6(th) months for a total of two years, together with continuous sickness absence monitoring during this period. Analysis will prospectively consider associations between self-reported physical demands and musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence. To obtain objective data on physical exposures, technical measurements will be collected from two subgroups of N = 300 (Group A) and N = 160 (Group B) during work and leisure. Both group A and B will be given a physical health examination, be tested for physical capacity and physical activity will be measured for four days. Additionally, muscle activity, ground reaction force, body positions and physical activity will be examined during one workday for Group B. Analysis of associations between objectively measured exposure data and the outcomes described above will be done separately for these subpopulations. DISCUSSION: The field study will at baseline produce objectively measured data on physical demands in the construction and health care occupations. In combination with clinical measurements and questionnaire data during follow-up, this will provide a solid foundation to prospectively investigate relationships between physical demands at work and development of musculoskeletal disorders, work ability and sickness absence. BioMed Central 2014-10-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4203897/ /pubmed/25318646 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1075 Text en © Lunde et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Lunde, Lars-Kristian
Koch, Markus
Knardahl, Stein
Wærsted, Morten
Mathiassen, Svend Erik
Forsman, Mikael
Holtermann, Andreas
Veiersted, Kaj Bo
Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title_full Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title_fullStr Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title_full_unstemmed Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title_short Musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
title_sort musculoskeletal health and work ability in physically demanding occupations: study protocol for a prospective field study on construction and health care workers
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25318646
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-1075
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