Musculoskeletal pain in women of the clothing industry: analysis through the perspective of the demand-control model.

Abstract

The objective of the study was to describe the occurrence of musculoskeletal pain (MEP) in workers of the clothing industry and analyze the relationship between MEP and different forms of operationalizing the variable “high psychosocial requirement”. Three hundred and six workers from 40 companies were evaluated for MEP, through a self-report on the presence or absence of symptoms. For evaluating the psychosocial factors, we used the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). Through the JCQ scores, the “high psychosocial requirement” variable was operationalized in forms: quadrant, ratio, logarithm of the ratio and subtraction. We tested the Poisson regression models, considering every form of calculation of the exposure variable and having MEP as the outcome. Of the workers evaluated, 54.3% had MEP. The probability of MEP occurrence in the presence of high requirement at work in this study ranged from 1.2% to 75%, according to the operationalization of this variable. With the results obtained, we concluded that work situations with high psychosocial requirements are associated with musculoskeletal pain in workers of the clothing industry. However, the form of definition and operationalization of the exposure variable (high requirement) interfere in the values of probability of pain occurring.