Authors: Tine Gjedde Sommer Poul Frost Susanne Wulff Svendsen
Publish Date: 2015/03/03
Volume: 88, Issue: 8, Pages: 1099-1110
Abstract
Pain in more than one site is common in working populations We aimed to characterise combined pain pain in the upper and lower body and to evaluate whether the prevalence of combined pain is positively related to combined occupational mechanical exposures to the upper and lower body and to high psychosocial job strainThis crosssectional study was based on questionnaire data from the Musculoskeletal Research Database at the Danish Ramazzini Centre The study included 14081 men and 20173 women Occupational exposures were assessed by job exposure matrices We analysed the prevalence of pain limited to the upper body pain limited to the lower body and combined pain in relation to occupational exposures using Poisson regressionDuring the last year 232 of the men and 339 of the women reported combined pain which was characterised by somatisation illness worrying and low SF36 scores For men the adjusted prevalence ratio for combined pain was 151 95 confidence interval 95 CI 140–164 in relation to exposures limited to the upper body and 224 95 CI 211–239 in relation to combined exposures For women the corresponding adjusted prevalence ratios were 156 95 CI 150–163 and 155 95 CI 150–161 High job strain was related to pain among men onlyThe Danish Working Environment Research Fund funded the establishment of the Musculoskeletal Research Database at the Danish Ramazzini Centre Grant No 31200909 We would like to thank Annett Dalbøge and Tine Steen Rubak who made their job exposure matrices available for the study
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