Association between awkward posture and musculoskeletal symptom among automobile assembly line workers in Malaysia

Abstract

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) has become one of the leading causes of occupational injury and increased compensation claims in the developed countries as well as industrially developing countries. In many parts of the world, automobile industry remain one of the important industries and assembly line workers in this particular industry are considered as high risk group of MSD due to its work nature. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of MSD symptom and ascertain the association between MSD symptom and its risk factors among automobile assembly line workers in Malaysia. In this cross sectional study, 232 workers were randomly selected from an assembly line of an automobile company in Malaysia. Standardized Nordic Questionnaire (SNQ) was used to study the prevalence of MSD and Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) technique was applied to assess awkward working posture. The result of SNQ revealed that 78.4% of workers complain MSD symptom in the last 12 months of their working carrier while low back had the highest (50.9%) prevalence of MSD symptom in different body regions. RULA showed that the majority of workers (73.7%) were in high and very high RULA risk level. Significant positive and moderate correlation was found between MSD and awkward posture (r = 0.485, p<.001). In addition, significant weak and positive correlation also was found between prevalence of MSD symptom and age (r = 0.155, p = 0.018) and job tenure (r = 0.189, p = 0.004). The high prevalence of MSD shows that MSD symptom is a significant problem among automobile assembly line workers. Hence, reducing the prevalence of MSD symptoms in the automobile assembly line should be primary goal for management of automobile companies. Eliminating awkward posture with reducing RULA action level by designing ergonomic workstation and ergonomic training for workers may reduce the prevalence of MSD symptom among automobile assembly line workers in Malaysia.