Journal of Ecophysiology and Occupational Health

Abstract

Context: The Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) among rag pickers are mostly non-fatal injuries such as injuries, pain or discomfort in the anatomical area, muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, nerves and in bones. The nature of their occupation requires the rag pickers constant bending, which raised the risk of Musculoskeletal Disorders in many body parts. Musculoskeletal Disorders were significantly higher for the lower back, upper back, knees, shoulder, neck and ankles among the rag pickers. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders in different body parts among rag pickers. Settings and Design: This study was carried out on sixty rag pickers comprising of male and female. Multistage random sampling technique was adopted in the study. The data has been collected from the rag pickers engaged in rag picking at Lucknow city. Materials and Methods: A self-structured and standardized interview schedule including modified version of Body Discomfort Scale (BDS) devised by Kuorinka et al., (1987) was used for the purpose of gathering information and measurement of pain in different body parts of the respondents. The study adopted survey research design and the respondents were interviewed personally. Statistical Analysis Used: The data was coded and analyzed using IBM SPSS 20.0 Version. The level of musculoskeletal pain in different body segments were analysed in the form of frequencies, mean, standard deviation and the significance was tested using ANOVA. Results: The study clearly revealed that rag pickers felt maximum pain in back, followed by knee pain, shoulder pain and hand pain. Conclusions: The study strongly recommends preventive and curative measures to minimize the burden of MSDs. A training program needs to be organized to detect the early signs and symptoms of MSDs so that rag pickers may adopt the curative measures.

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