Correlation power of related factors affected musculoskeletal disorders complaints amongst rice mill unit operators

Abstract

Background and Objective: Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) is an occupational health pro blem that still needs to be analyzed in order to find out the prevention. The agroindustry workers are one gr oup of workers at risk of experiencing MSDs. The aims of this s tudy was to investigate the MSDs prevalence in rice mill operators and t heir related factors. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study has been conducted on 35 rice mill operators from 16 rice mill units in Penajam District of Indonesia. The MSDs severity was plott ed by Nordic Body Map, while physical workload, work posture, risk of manual handling, holding and carrying as wells as health status of th e rice mill operators were measured by the percentage of cardiovascular load, Ovako working posture assessment system, key indicator method for lifting and body mass index, respectively. Product moment Pearson and Rank Spearman were applied to identify the correlati on between MSDs prevalence and parameters observed. Results: The MSDs prevalence was found on all of the rice mill operator s, which categorized as low, moderate and high level of 17.1, 62.9 and 20.0%, respectively. It correlated significantly with workload (p = 0.009, r = 0.287), age (p = 0.026, r = 0.377), working period (p = 0.017, r = 0.401), working hours (p = 0.008, r = 0.441), work posture (p = 0.000, r = 0.671) and manual handling risk (p = 0.000, r = 0.689). Conclusion: The first four variables show low association (minor factors) with MSDs prevalence, while the latter two variables (work posture and manual handling risk) show strong association (major factors).