Musculoskeletal Pain and Associated Factors among Building Construction Workers in Southeastern Ethiopia

Nuriye2 and Yonas Lamore3

Ethiopia

Bale Goba, Ethiopia; Email: abate.lette@yahoo.com

more body regions is higher in construction workers.

construction workers.

(CI) were performed.

masonry), and experience (AOR = 0.51) were identified as risk factors of musculoskeletal pain.

musculoskeletal pain.

Musculoskeletal Pain and Associated Factors among Building Construction Workers in Southeastern Ethiopia Ergonomics Int J

Keywords: Musculoskeletal Pain; Lower Back Pain; Manual Workers; Construction Safety and Health Abbreviations: CI: Confidence Interval; COR: Crud Odds Ratio; ILO: International Labor Organization; IRB: Institutional Review Board; LBP: Lower Back Pain; WRMSDs: Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders.

Background

Musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) is a major global occupational health and safety problem, and employees working in the construction company have potential risk of it [1, 2, 3]. Worldwide, the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms involving one or more body regions is higher in construction workers [4]. The load of physical work associated with awkward prolong working postures and manual handling of materials by the construction workers can cause various musculoskeletal pains and disorders [5]. Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are injuries and disorders of the soft tissues such as muscles, tendons, ligament, joints, and cartilage that can affect nearly all tissues including the nerves and tendons that involve neck, shoulders, backs, arms, and legs [6]. Most WRMSDs are chronic disorders which can develop over time. They can be episodic or chronic in duration and can also result from injury sustained in a work-related accident. Additionally, they can progress from mild to severe disorders through time. These disorders are seldom life threatening but they impair the quality of life of a large proportion of the adult population in the world [7].

Lower back pain (LBP) is one of the commonest and most prevalent forms of musculoskeletal disorders which cause disability and work absenteeism in the developed nations. LBP is considered as one of the leading causes of disability, inability to work, work absenteeism, financial costs and loss of quality of life [8, 9, 10]. Approximately from 60% to 90% of people will suffer from low back pain at some point in their life. Many of the factors causing LBP can be associated with a job. Globally, about 37% of LBP can be attributed to work [11]. Three different groups of potential risk factors have been identified: (a) individual factors such as age, height, body weight and smoking (b) physical factors such as heavy lifting, rapid work pace, repetitive motion patterns, insufficient recovery time, twisted postures, awkward and vibration (both segmental and whole-body), contact stress, and extreme temperature (c) psychosocial factors such as psychological demands and mental workload, organizational and job dissatisfaction [12, 13].

In Great Britain, about 6.6 million working days were lost due to WRMSDs, where work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs) account for around 2.6 million of days lost, back disorders about 2.2 million and work related lower limb disorders (WRLLDs) 1.7millions of days. An average of 14 days was lost for each case [7]. In the United States, the National Arthritis Data Workgroup reviewed national survey data showing that each year some 15% of adults report frequent back pain or pain lasting more than two weeks. In Canada, Finland and the United States, more people are disabled from working as a result of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) - especially back pain than from any other group of diseases [11]. In Jimma town, about forty percent of building construction workers was suffered from back pain, and in Robe town about 4% of construction workers injured due to lifting heavy load [14, 15]. In Ethiopia, there is lack of data on work-related musculoskeletal pain in construction workers. This study aimed to identify prevalence of musculoskeletal pain and associated factors among building construction workers in southeast Ethiopia.

Results

Of the total 422 workers, 410 participated in the study yielding the response rate of 97.2%. The age of the respondents’ range from 21−58 years with a mean age of 31.32 (7.54%) years. One thirds, 128(31.2%) of the employees were manual laborers. The majority 227(55.4%) have less than five years of experience. About seventy percent of the employees worked for more than 8 hours per day. Only 71(17.3%) have trained on ergonomics. One fourths 105(25.6%) were drink alcohol (Table 1).

Discussion

The overall prevalence of musculoskeletal disorder in building construction workers was 43.9% in the previous 12 months. This finding was comparable with a study conducted in Saud Arabia, and lower than a study conducted in Malaysia and Taiwan [16, 17]. This study was also greater than a study conducted in Great Britain [7]. This variation may be due to a difference between countries in work organizations and workers behavior on safety practice.

In this study lower back, wrist/ hands, and upper back disorders were the three leading types of musculoskeletal disorders. Comparable findings were reported from different countries: In Germen a cohort study reported 30.9% of LBP(13). A study conducted in Malaysia declared lower back (45%), followed by shoulder (28.3%), neck (16.7%), and wrist / hand (15%), upper back (13.3%), knees (13.3%), elbow (10%), hip/thigh (8.3%) and ankles or feet (5%) [17]. A case study among Iranian steel bar bending employees showed 59% of workers have suffered in their wrists/hands, and 46% had low back trouble [18]. A study among male manual construction workers in South Africa reported 25% of low back pain [19]. In Ethiopia 35.6% of construction workers were suffered from low back pain [14].

Manual laborer and masonry workers were the most affected working groups. This finding was comparable with a study in Great Britain, Malaysia and Ethiopia [15, 16, 17].

Work category and experience were significantly associated with musculoskeletal pain. Manual laborer and masonry worker were more likely affected with musculoskeletal disorder compared with the drivers or machine operators. The study conducted Jakarta indicated an association between manual handling practice and musculoskeletal disorders specially LBP [8]. It can be concluded that manual handling in construction industries have a significant level of higher physical stress associated with the jobs [20]. In Ethiopia 39.6% of manual laborers and 17.0% masonry workers were affected with low back [14]. Workers who have less than 5 years’ experience were less likely develop the pain compared with their counterparts(AOR = 0.51). Work related musculoskeletal disorders was about 4 times more among workers with greater than 20 years of work experience than those with 11-20 years and are about 2 times more in those with 1-10 years of work experience respectively. Working in the same position for long periods, manual lifting of heavy loads were the most perceived job risk factors among India construction workers [5]. Our finding was also similar with a study conducted in Saudi Arabia reported that workers with greater than 5 years’ experience were more likely affected with musculoskeletal pain compared with those who have less than 5 years of experience[16].

Conclusion

In this study the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain among building construction workers is high compared with another study conducted in Ethiopia. Work category and experience were factors significantly associated with musculoskeletal pain.

Declaration

The study was performed by interviewing the construction workers after an ethical approval was obtained from IRB of the College of Health Sciences and individual verbal consent is obtained from the study participants. This manuscript has never been submitted and considered for publication to any other journal.

Availability of Supporting Data

Data will be available upon request.

Competing Interests

Authors have no competing interest and all have approved the manuscript for publication.

Funding

This study was supported by Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia

Authors’ Contributions

All authors have equal contribution on this manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to Madda Walabu University for supporting this study. We are also very grateful to construction companies for their cooperation to undertake this study.

Authors' Information

AL and AH are lecturers at Madda Walabu University, MK is a lecturer and academic and research coordinator at Madda Walabu University, SN is a lecturer at Wolayta Sodo University, and YL is a lecturer at Debre Markos University.