The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the textile occupation in Khon Kaen province

ABSTRACT

Musculoskeletal disorders are one of the common health problems which can make people discomfort during doing activity or during working and this could affect the quality of their life, family and society. It can arise in every occupation, especially in the industries and also involved in textile occupation. The knowledge of prevalence of musculoskeletal disorder is important information and can be a potential practical guidance to prevent musculoskeletal disorders which will be a good effect for people and economy in their country. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in the textile occupation in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Three hundred and twenty-three workers of several divisions of the textile industry were participated in this study. The participants were asked to fill out the Standard Nordic Questionnaire in Thai version. This study found that the top three of the most prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in seven days were shoulder pain (39.7 %, 95 % CI 34.3 – 45.1), low back pain (36.3 %, 95 % CI 30.9 – 41.6), and wrist and fingers pain (33.1 %, 95 % CI 27.9 – 38.3), respectively. The top three of the most prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in twelve months were shoulder pain (49.8 %, 95 % CI 44.4 – 55.3), low back pain (46.6 %, 95 % CI 41.1 – 52.2), and neck pain (42.6 %, 95 % CI 37.0 – 48.1), respectively. And the top three of the most disability which affected by pain were low back pain (27.5 %, 95 % CI 22.5 – 32.5), hip pain (21.4 %, 95 % CI 16.9 – 26.0), and shoulder pain (21.4 %, 95 % CI 16.8 – 26.0), respectively. The findings of the study demonstrated that low back pain was the most frequent problem that was found in the textile industrial workers and could make them absent from work. Therefore, it would be worth to further investigate the risk factors of this problem in the textile industrial workers in order to prevent them suffering from the disorder.