Prevalence and risk factors for work related musculoskeletal disorders among sonographer of Sindh Province Pakistan

Background: the common work related musculoskeletal disorders (wrmds) among medical profession are pain in neck,elbow,shoulder wrist and back. sonographers are more vulnerable to develop wrmds as their work demands series of awkward repetitive movements. objective: to determine the prevalence of work related musculoskeletal disorders (wrmds) and to identify factors that may contribute to musculoskeletal disorders among sonologists of sindh province pakistan. methodology: this questionnaire based study conducted at the department of radiology,liaquat university of medical & health sciences. the target population chosen for this study was sonologists from the sind province of pakistan. spss used to analyze the data,results presented as frequency for categorical variables and as mean for continuous variables. to identify predictor variable for wrmds,multiple bivariate regression analysis was performed,the level of significant was set at p <0.05. results: among 145 participants,53.80% were university employed,while 56.54 were performing ultrasonography up to 10 hours. the prevalence of wrmds disorder in this series was 75.17%,the mean duration of symptoms was 30.48 months. 45.9% reported it as severe. wrmds were more prevalent and severe in those doing scanning of both abdomen and obstetric. the low back ache is the most common site of wrmds found in this series (53.21%,n=58),followed by neck ache (24.77%) wrist joint (8.25%),finger (7.33%) and shoulder (6.42%). the result of bivariate analysis showed that severity of wrmds correlated statistically significantly with primary area of expertise,duration of wrmds,working experience and working hours. conclusion: the prevalence of wrmds and its severity is significantly high among sonographers of sindh province. © 2017,liaquat university of medical and health sciences. all rights reserved.