Study of Pevalence and Risk of Musculoskeletal Disorders in Surgeons of a General Hospital in Tehran, Iran 2016

Surgeons are exposed to different risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders due to environmental situations of operating rooms and the nature of their tasks. Aim of this article is assessing the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in surgeons. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in all employed surgeons of a general hospital in Tehran, 2017. Eighty five cases of surgery were assessed by applying RULA and SI as two ergonomic observational methods. Also, the Nordic questionnaire and the other self-administered questionnaire including three parts of demographic, awareness and attitude questions were completed by under observing surgeons. The findings were analyzed in SPSS version 16. The results showed that the most prevalence of self-reported pain is allocated to lower and upper back (76.4%) while the least pain is related to thigh and hip (8.2%) in the surgeons. The maximum percentage of determined risk level of musculoskeletal disorders by RULA and SI methods were 58.2 and 54.4, respectively. Much non-compliance between operating rooms and ergonomic principles were determined based on assessing ergonomic conditions of surgeons. Conducting a participative ergonomic program including education, appropriate job planning for surgeons and equipped operating rooms with ergonomic tools and equipment has unavoidable effect on decreasing the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders.