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Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey

BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of work-related sick leave and incur substantial socioeconomic costs. With the aging of our society and employees, the problem is exacerbating, and prevention is becoming increasingly important. According to previous studies, exposure to aw...

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Autores principales: Barthelme, Julia, Sauter, Martha, Mueller, Charlotte, Liebers, Falk
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34266451
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12891-021-04482-4
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author Barthelme, Julia
Sauter, Martha
Mueller, Charlotte
Liebers, Falk
author_facet Barthelme, Julia
Sauter, Martha
Mueller, Charlotte
Liebers, Falk
author_sort Barthelme, Julia
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of work-related sick leave and incur substantial socioeconomic costs. With the aging of our society and employees, the problem is exacerbating, and prevention is becoming increasingly important. According to previous studies, exposure to awkward postures, such as overhead work, is associated with musculoskeletal problems. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the current prevalence of employees who work in awkward postures, specifically overhead, stratified by age, gender and occupation in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey and to analyze associations between awkward working postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region. METHOD: The study is based on secondary data from the German 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey. We have included 14,327 of the 20,012 employees aged < 67 years who work at least 35 h per week who took part in the survey. The classification of participants in occupational groups is based on the Blossfeld classification. The multivariate analysis was conducted by applying robust Poisson regression models adjusted block by block to obtain the relation between the self-reported frequency of working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and the occurrence of arm pain and neck and shoulder pain. Prevalence ratios (PR) are reported as effect estimates. RESULTS: 12.7% of participants indicated that they are often exposed to awkward postures at work; 5.0% stated they often performed overhead work. The majority of these employees worked in agricultural, unskilled and skilled manual occupations. The crude prevalence is 17.4% for arm pain and 48.4% for neck and shoulder pain. If subjects reported that they often performed overhead work, the risk of arm pain increased by 18% (PR 1.18, CI 1.04–1.34, final model). CONCLUSION: Working in awkward postures, especially overhead work, is a risk factor for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders. The development of prevention strategies should focus on the workforce in agricultural, unskilled and skilled manual occupations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12891-021-04482-4.
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spelling pubmed-82839402021-07-19 Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey Barthelme, Julia Sauter, Martha Mueller, Charlotte Liebers, Falk BMC Musculoskelet Disord Research Article BACKGROUND: Musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of work-related sick leave and incur substantial socioeconomic costs. With the aging of our society and employees, the problem is exacerbating, and prevention is becoming increasingly important. According to previous studies, exposure to awkward postures, such as overhead work, is associated with musculoskeletal problems. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the current prevalence of employees who work in awkward postures, specifically overhead, stratified by age, gender and occupation in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey and to analyze associations between awkward working postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region. METHOD: The study is based on secondary data from the German 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey. We have included 14,327 of the 20,012 employees aged < 67 years who work at least 35 h per week who took part in the survey. The classification of participants in occupational groups is based on the Blossfeld classification. The multivariate analysis was conducted by applying robust Poisson regression models adjusted block by block to obtain the relation between the self-reported frequency of working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and the occurrence of arm pain and neck and shoulder pain. Prevalence ratios (PR) are reported as effect estimates. RESULTS: 12.7% of participants indicated that they are often exposed to awkward postures at work; 5.0% stated they often performed overhead work. The majority of these employees worked in agricultural, unskilled and skilled manual occupations. The crude prevalence is 17.4% for arm pain and 48.4% for neck and shoulder pain. If subjects reported that they often performed overhead work, the risk of arm pain increased by 18% (PR 1.18, CI 1.04–1.34, final model). CONCLUSION: Working in awkward postures, especially overhead work, is a risk factor for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders. The development of prevention strategies should focus on the workforce in agricultural, unskilled and skilled manual occupations. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12891-021-04482-4. BioMed Central 2021-07-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8283940/ /pubmed/34266451 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12891-021-04482-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Barthelme, Julia
Sauter, Martha
Mueller, Charlotte
Liebers, Falk
Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title_full Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title_fullStr Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title_full_unstemmed Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title_short Association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey
title_sort association between working in awkward postures, in particular overhead work, and pain in the shoulder region in the context of the 2018 bibb/baua employment survey
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283940/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34266451
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12891-021-04482-4
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