Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among surgeons: comprehensive question pool development and a pilot study

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/4m90f1542

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  • Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are prevalent among surgeons due to a variety of risk factors. Various subjective tools have been used to investigate the associations between these risk factors and their contributions to the development of WMSDs. This study aimed to provide a summary of a collection of popular subjective tools, including their applications and risk factors investigated using these tools, and to develop a comprehensive question pool and general guidelines to assist researchers to select tools based on their research interests. Furthermore, the developed comprehensive question pool was used to create a questionnaire and investigate the risk factors associated with developing WMSDs among surgeons with experience of performing a variety of surgical procedures.A systematic literature review was performed using six electronic databases. Articles that met inclusion criteria were investigated thoroughly.Questions were categorized based on the categories of risk factors and outcome measurements to create the comprehensive question pool. The results of the systematic review indicated that among 60 articles meeting inclusion criteria, 10 standard, 5 modified version, and 18 self-developed tools were recognized. The NASA-TLX and Nordic Musculoskeletal questionnaires were the most popular tools. Four groups of risk factors were identified: physical, cognitive, psychosocial, and individual factors. Physical and individual risk factors have received more attention compared with the psychosocial and cognitive risk factors. It was also found that investigating the short-term outcome measurements, such as discomfort, got more attention comparing the long-term ones.The second objective of this study was to use the developed comprehensive question pool to create a questionnaire and investigate the risk factors associated with developing WMSDs among surgeons. Seven surgeons from local hospitals participated in the pilot study. They answered to the questions about each of the categories of risk factors. The results of the questionnaire indicated that the levels of risk factors are different while performing different surgical procedures of open, laparoscopic, and robotic. The results also showed that surgeons who are aware of ergonomic guidelines experience discomfort in fewer regions of their bodies after performing surgeries.The results of this study indicated that only few tools can be used to investigate the risk factors from all four categories of risk factors. Moreover, risk factors from different groups got different levels of attention. Using the developed comprehensive question pool helped us to create a questionnaire more efficiently to investigate the risk factors associated with developing WMSDs thoroughly. The results of the survey itself showed the association between the risk factors and prevalence of discomfort among surgeons and different levels of risk of performing different surgical procedures. The results also indicated the importance of ergonomic guidelines awareness in reducing the risk of developing WMSDs among surgeons. Since most of the risk factors included in these tools are very common among various occupations, the general guidelines developed in this paper can be used by researchers who are interested in reducing the risk of the development of WMSDs among surgeons and workers in other occupations.
  • Keywords: Survey, Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders, Ergonomics, Questionnaire, Surgeon, Question pool
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