Evaluation of the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms, presumptive diagnosis, medical care use, and sick leave among female school meal service workers

Young Hoon Moon; Young Joon Yang; Sang Yoon Do; Jae Yoon Kim; Chul Gab Lee; Hong Jae Chae; Soo Hyeon Kim; Han Soo Song

doi:10.1186/s40557-019-0281-0

Evaluation of the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms, presumptive diagnosis, medical care use, and sick leave among female school meal service workers

Ann Occup Environ Med. 2019 Jan 15:31:1. doi: 10.1186/s40557-019-0281-0. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Young Hoon Moon¹, Young Joon Yang¹, Sang Yoon Do¹, Jae Yoon Kim¹, Chul Gab Lee¹, Hong Jae Chae², Soo Hyeon Kim³, Han Soo Song¹

Affiliations

¹ 1Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Chosun University Hospital, College of Medicine, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Donggunsan Hospital, Gunsan, South Korea.
³ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, KS hospital, Gwangju, South Korea.

Abstract

Background: Most of the school meal service workers in Korea are middle-aged individuals. They have high workload, which increases their incidence of musculoskeletal disorders. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and risk factors of subjective musculoskeletal symptoms, presumptive diagnosis, medical care use, and sick leave among female school meal workers.

Methods: We analyzed the results of musculoskeletal disease screening of 1581 female school meal workers. The screening consisted of self-administered questionnaire, history taking by occupational physicians, and physical examination. The prevalence of subjective musculoskeletal symptoms, presumptive diagnosis after initial examination by occupational physicians, use of medical care for more than 7 days, and sick leave due to musculoskeletal diseases during the past year were evaluated in this study. The relative risk of four outcome indicators of musculoskeletal disorders was compared with respect to potential factors, such as age, subjective physical loading, present illness, injury experience, and type of school, using log-binomial regression.

Results: The prevalence of subjective musculoskeletal symptom was 79.6%; presumptive diagnosis, 47.6%; hospital visits over 7 days, 36.4%; and sick leave, 7.3%. The relative risk of musculoskeletal symptoms by age (≥50 years vs < 50 years) was 1.04 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.00-1.09); presumptive diagnosis of musculoskeletal disease, 1.17 (95% CI: 1.06-1.30); hospital visits over 7 days, 1.26 (95% CI: 0.85-1.85); and sick leave, 1.17 (95% CI: 1.02-1.34). The relative risk of musculoskeletal symptoms due to subjective physical loading (very hard vs low) was 1.45 (95% CI: 1.33-1.58); presumptive diagnosis, 2.92 (95% CI: 2.25); hospital visits over 7 days, 1.91 (95% CI: 1.02-3.59); and sick leave, 2.11 (95% CI: 1.63-2.74).

Conclusions: Subjective physical loading was a more important factor in musculoskeletal disorders than the age of female school meal workers.

Keywords: Female; Musculoskeletal diseases; School meal.