Investigating the Associations between Musculoskeletal Discomforts and Perceived Stress among Production Operators

Abstract

Both musculoskeletal pain and harmful stress have adverse health effects on production operators if they are not properly monitored or managed. However, the mechanism behind the association between these two variables is unclear especially when causal inference could not be deduced from majority of studies. Thus, there is a need for a better understanding of musculoskeletal pain and perceived stress among production workers in order to improve their health and safe working conditions. This is especially critical since majority of manufacturing companies in Malaysia are still labour intensive and any adverse effects of employees' health could impact the organizational performance. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the current prevalence of perceived stress and musculoskeletal pain among production workers and the possible linkage between perceived stress and musculoskeletal pain. A cross-sectional survey involving 400 shop-floor manufacturing workers was done using Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaires (CMDQ) and Perceived Stress Questionnaires (PSQ). Data were analysed using hierarchal regressions. It is found that stress significantly affects MSDs albeit very weak (R2= 0.048) after controlling for gender and age. Neck, lower back and lower legs (Right and Left) were reported to have high prevalence of MSDs compared to other parts of the body (M=2.96, SD= 1.342; M=2.72, SD=1.441; M(R)= 2.6, SD=1.418; M(L)=2.63, SD=1.415).