Wrist-hand work-related musculoskeletal disorders in a dairy factory: Incidence, prevalence and comparison between different methods for disease validation

Abstract

The involvement of wrist and hand in working postures is very common in work environments like food manufacturing. Risk factors increasing due to repetitive tasks and long working hours with few breaks. The aim of this study is to analyze the prevalence and incidence of wrist/hand Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSD), as well the wrist/hand disease assessment methods, in a dairy factory. The company has 620 employees and data were collected among the 166 workers belonging to the cheese sector. Two evaluations were done and a total of 134 respondents (80,7%) were evaluated in both. Wrist/hand WRMSD prevalence rate was assessed by self-reported symptoms, clinical evaluation and imaging, in both evaluation periods, varying between 18% and 45%. The incidence rate from the first to the second evaluation varied between 7% and 23%, depending on the sensitivity and specificity of each evaluation method's criteria. The results of this study emphasize the importance of joint evaluation of outcomes of different assessment methods.