Risk Assessment of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Determination of the Associated Factors among Workers of a Dairy Products Factory

Background: musculoskeletal disorders (msds) are one of themost common causes of occupational injuries that appear in thelower back, neck and upper and lower extremities mainly. thisstudy was conducted to assess the risk of msds and determineof its associated factors in workers of a dairy products company.methods: in this cross-sectional study, 100 male employees(21-41yrs) using census sampling method participated. datawere collected using demographic questionnaire, nordicmusculoskeletal disorders questionnaire (nmq) and qecmethod for assessment of postures during the work. data wereanalyzed using statistical tests including test of proportion,multiple logistic regression, and fisher’s exact by spss software(version 16.0).results: the results of this study showed that the lower back(37%), shoulders (36%), and hand/wrist (33%) had the highestprevalence of symptoms of disorders among workers. the resultsof multiple logistic regression showed a significant associationbetween the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in differentregions of the body and age, job experiences, shift workingand bmi. the results of assessment of physical exposure tomusculoskeletal risks by qec technique showed that in 52%of the studied workers, the level of exposure to musculoskeletalrisks was in action level (al) 1, 9% in al2, 30% in al3, and9% in al4. also, the finding revealed a significant relationshipbetween the prevalence rate of msds and the risk level (low andhigh risk) achieved by qec method.conclusions: prevalence of symptoms of pain in differentregions of the body had an association with age, job experience,shift working and bmi. corrective measures seemed essentialin improvement of working condition in the studied workers.