Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Symptoms and Risk Factors Among CuttingSection Workers from Selected Garments Factory in Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are the conditions which are used to describe painful ordisabling injuries to the muscles, tendons or nerves caused or aggravated by work. Workers with low back painexperience different types of symptoms like pain, stiffness, burning, numbness or tingling which persevere for morethan 1 week or may influence their work performance.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among102 cutting section workers by usingpurposive samplingfrom the Talisman limited and Dhaka Export Processing Zone,.The data were collected by faceto face interview though Dutch Musculoskeletal Questionnaire to determine the prevalence and associationbetween musculoskeletal symptoms and socio-demographic factors and also to identify associated risk factors ofmusculoskeletal symptoms among the respective garment’s workers. The collected data was entered and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version, 17.0.

Results: The study showed 96.07% of respondents reported regarding musculoskeletal symptoms troubled them inone or more body regions during the past 12 months. Among the symptom, wrist was the area with the highestprevalence of musculoskeletal symptom (95.2%), followed by shoulder (37.5%), lower back (67.3%), ankle/feet(91.6%), knee (84.6%), thigh (55.5%), upper back (60.6%) and elbow (38.4%). Most of the (96.07%) of participantshad an associated risk factor. Musculoskeletal disorders are a common problem among garments workers. Workers have a risk of developing WMSDs due to theirpoor working setting, repetition and awkward.

Conclusion: Appropriate workplace modification and ergonomic intervention should be applied in these sectors toprevent musculoskeletal symptoms.