Authors: Pernilla Larsman Roland Kadefors Leif Sandsjö
Publish Date: 2012/02/12
Volume: 86, Issue: 1, Pages: 57-63
Abstract
Unfavorable psychosocial working conditions are hypothesized to lead to perceived stress which in turn can be related to an increased risk of development of neck/shoulder symptoms through increased and sustained muscle activation The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesized process model among medical secretaries a femaledominated profession characterized by a high amount of visual display unit use and a high prevalence of neck/shoulder symptomsThe results indicate that high work demands were related to high perceived stress which in turn was related to a high perceived muscle tension and neck/shoulder symptoms Low influence at work was not related to perceived stress but was directly related to a high perceived muscle tensionIn general these crosssectional results lend tentative support for the hypothesis that adverse psychosocial work conditions high work demands may contribute to the development of neck/shoulder symptoms through the mechanism of stressinduced sustained muscular activation This process model needs to be further tested in longitudinal studiesThe authors thank Christer Knutsson at “Hälsan och arbetslivet” and Agneta Lindegård at the Institute for Stress Medicine for their contribution to this study This study was supported by Region Västra Götaland Sweden and AFA Insurance Sweden grant number FA1102 Dr Larsman was supported by a postdoc grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research grant number 20070655 Dr Sandsjö was supported by the European Union via Tillväxtverket and the Regional Development Fund
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