Assessment of Work Postures and Musculoskeletal Pain among Insurance Office Employees: A Case Study

Abstract

The office employees in financial service sector like insurance industry face some common problems. They have to work for a longer time and they perform repetitive and excessive hand and arm muscle which keeps their body posture in poor state. This results in musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) which leads to pain and discomfort. The aim of the study is to find the musculoskeletal disorder problems among the insurance office employees and to investigate the association of musculoskeletal pain problems with risk factors like Work Postures using Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA). The study was conducted at different Insurance offices situated at Punjab (India). The questionnaire was completed by interviewing the employees about their pain. Also, Rapid Upper Limb Assessment method was performed by employing video recordings of employee’s work posture. Correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the associations between different risk factors and musculoskeletal pain followed by a regression analysis to understand the predictors of pain. The results explored that musculoskeletal disorder occurred at a high rate. The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain was reported in Back (54%), Neck (40%) and Shoulder (30%). Rapid Upper Limb Assessment showed that Grand Score of 76% cases was high and very high (action level of 3&4). Certain risk factors are found to be significantly associated with disorder symptoms in lower back, neck, upper back, shoulders, knees and lower leg. Based on Rapid Upper Limb Assessment observations, most of the workstation scores falls in action level 3 (Grand score 5-6). High musculoskeletal disorder problems are the result of poor postures and unstable workstation. It also shows that working postures have a direct contribution on MSD problems by the office employees.