NECK AND UPPER EXTREMITY PROBLEMS IN CAR ASSEMBLY WORKERS - A COMPARISON OF SUBJECTIVE COMPLAINTS, WORK SATISFACTION, PHYSICAL-EXAMINATION AND GENDER

This study includes 564 car assembly workers, 440 men and 124 women, Q uestionnaires, including work satisfaction, orthopaedic examination an d exposure evaluation were performed. Women had more neck-myalgia and more physical signs from the hands, especially nerve related problems and tendinitis compared to men, Impingement of the shoulder was equall y prevalent among women and men, doing the same work. Women showed a h igher work satisfaction than men. Stress at work correlated both to su bjective complaints from all locations in the upper half of the body a nd to findings at the physical examination. A logistic regression anal ysis showed that subjective complaints from the neck, shoulders and fe et correlated to less good work satisfaction, while work dissatisfacti on was not correlated to any of the physical signs, Those having stati on-bound work showed less good relations to foremen/workmates and bett er to the work in comparison with the workstations at the assembly lin e, The questionnaire gave around 50% higher prevalence of pain from di fferent body areas, when compared to the physical examination. The res ult represent 23 workstations, constituting the assembly line, A great variation of symptoms and signs was found, significantly so for subje ctive pain in the wrists/hands (p<0.02), objective pain in the cervica l spine (p<0.01) and shoulder impingement (p<0.01), Some specific ergo nomic problems were found. A summary for each workstation was presente d to the factory and some changes were accomplished. The quality of th e production is, among other things, depending on healthy workers, hig h work satisfaction, low workforce turnover, etc. This study shows how the combination of questionnaires, including work satis faction, phys ical examination and exposure evaluation can give possibilities to spe cific intervention.