[Occurrence pattern of musculoskeletal disorders and its influencing factors among manufacturing workers].

objectiveTo explore the occurrence pattern and its influencing factors of multi-site work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) of the main affected body sites among manufacturing workers.

methodsMusculoskeletal disorders questionnaire was adopted to investigate the prevalence of WMSDs and the influencing factors among workers from four manufacturing factories in China. The case of WMSDs was defined as the one who had symptoms such as pain, numbness, discomfort, or limitation of activities in one or more of the nine body sites, including neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist/hand, upper back, lower back, hip/thigh, knee and ankle/foot during the last year, which lasted for more than 24 hours and did not completely relieve after rest. Besides, trauma, disability, other acute injuries or sequelae were excluded. The correlation of WMSDs between different body sites was estimated by the prevalence ratio (PR) calculated by log-binominal model. The influencing factors of multi-site WMSDs of the main affected body sites were analyzed by multinomial logistic regression model.

resultsThe overall prevalence rate of WMSDs was 79.7% among the manufacturing workers. The main affected body sites were lower back, neck, shoulder and upper back, of which the prevalence rates were 62.3%, 55.7%, 45.6%, and 38.7%, respectively. The PR values of WMSDs among these sites were relatively high. The prevalence of multi-site WMSDs involving these four sites at the same time was 25.2%, and that of three to four sites was 41.4%. Multinomial Logistic regression analysis suggested that influencing factors of multi-site WMSDs in 3-4 sites of neck, shoulder, upper back and lower back involved several aspects. Among these factors, females (

conclusionThe pre-valence rates of WMSDs in neck, shoulder, upper back, and lower back were high among manufacturing workers in this study. The correlation of WMSDs of these four sites was close in this study, and the comorbidity rate of 3-4 sites of these sites was relatively high, suggesting that there might be a multi-site occurrence pattern of WMSDs in "neck-shoulder-upper back-lower back" among manufacturing workers. The main influencing factors of this pattern included individual factors, biomechanical factors and work organization factors.