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Combined musculoskeletal pain in the upper and lower body: associations with occupational mechanical and psychosocial exposures

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Abstract

Purpose

Pain in more than one site is common in working populations. We aimed to characterise combined pain (pain in the upper and lower body) and to evaluate whether the prevalence of combined pain is positively related to combined occupational mechanical exposures to the upper and lower body and to high psychosocial job strain.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was based on questionnaire data from the Musculoskeletal Research Database at the Danish Ramazzini Centre. The study included 14,081 men and 20,173 women. Occupational exposures were assessed by job exposure matrices. We analysed the prevalence of pain limited to the upper body, pain limited to the lower body, and combined pain in relation to occupational exposures using Poisson regression.

Results

During the last year, 23.2 % of the men and 33.9 % of the women reported combined pain, which was characterised by somatisation, illness worrying, and low SF-36 scores. For men, the adjusted prevalence ratio for combined pain was 1.51 [95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) 1.40–1.64] in relation to exposures limited to the upper body and 2.24 (95 % CI 2.11–2.39) in relation to combined exposures. For women, the corresponding adjusted prevalence ratios were 1.56 (95 % CI 1.50–1.63) and 1.55 (95 % CI 1.50–1.61). High job strain was related to pain among men, only.

Conclusion

Combined pain may in part be explained by local effects of occupational mechanical exposures acting at more than one site.

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Acknowledgments

The Danish Working Environment Research Fund funded the establishment of the Musculoskeletal Research Database at the Danish Ramazzini Centre (Grant No. 31-2009-09). We would like to thank Annett Dalbøge and Tine Steen Rubak, who made their job exposure matrices available for the study.

Conflict of interest

None declared.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Danish Ramazzini Centre, Department of Occupational Medicine, Regional Hospital West Jutland – University Research Clinic, Gl. Landevej 61, 7400, Herning, Denmark

    Tine Gjedde Sommer & Susanne Wulff Svendsen

  2. Danish Ramazzini Centre, Department of Occupational Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Nørrebrogade 44, building 2C, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Poul Frost

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  1. Tine Gjedde Sommer
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  2. Poul Frost
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Correspondence to Susanne Wulff Svendsen.

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Sommer, T.G., Frost, P. & Svendsen, S.W. Combined musculoskeletal pain in the upper and lower body: associations with occupational mechanical and psychosocial exposures. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 88, 1099–1110 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-015-1036-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-015-1036-z

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