Labor Gymnastics in reducing complaints of occupational stress and musculoskeletal pain in collar workers of a public university.

Author(s)

Fabiana Cristina Taubert de Freitas

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2011-01-28

Examining board members

Maria Lucia do Carmo Cruz Robazzi; Andrea Licre Pessina Gasparini

• Advisor: Maria Lucia do Carmo Cruz Robazzi

Abstract

Psychosocial factors involve symptoms such as physical or mental tiredness and stress, in addition to being important contributors to the incidence and severity of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMD). The objective was to evaluate the effect of compensatory Labor Gymnastics (LG) in administrative workers, aiming to reduce complaints related to occupational stress and musculoskeletal pain. Search quasi-experimental design with quantitative analysis and comparative data that had a sample of 30 administrative staff from School of Nursing from Ribeirao Preto, USP. To collect the data we adopted three questionnaires: the characterization of workers that addressed the personal and occupational characteristics of the subjects, the Scale of Occupational Stress (SOE) to identify the presence of occupational stress and Corlett Diagram (CD) for to assess the presence, location and intensity of musculoskeletal pain complaints. The period of data collection occurred from February to June 2010 and it was divided into three stages: the first was a pre-test that consisted of the questionnaire administration directly to the subjects; the second was the intervention by LG with a frequency of 2 times per week, lasting 15 minutes each, between 10 weeks and it relied on techniques of segmental stabilization, stretching in chains and segmental and active kinesiotherapy. The third stage was the post-test in which subjects responded again to the SOE and the CD. For data analysis of occupational stress and musculoskeletal pain was initially used descriptive statistics; to verify that these values were significant, there was statistical and nonparametric Wilcoxon Test was applied separately for the analysis of each of these variables, adopting the level of significance 95% (p = 0.005). The results showed that most subjects were female (56,7%), married (70%), with higher education level (73,3%) and adopted the right hand as dominant (90%). Had a mean age of 41,7 (± 8,79) years and made exercise for an average of 2,6 (± 1,5) times weekly; they worked 40,1 hours (± 0,7) in full turn, 73,3 % did not engage in overtime and 13,3% had another job. We found the presence of occupational stress on employees evaluated, with average levels of 2,3 in the pre and 2,2 in the post test, no statistically significant reduction. However, there was a reduction in musculoskeletal painful in all body segments evaluated, being statistically significant in neck, upper, middle and bottom back, right thigh, left leg, right ankle and feet. It was evident that the LG applied in these subjects promoted a significant reduction of musculoskeletal pains mainly localized in the spine, and promote a positive symptomatologic reduction in all the body segments evaluated, so it favored, also, not to higher the levels of occupational stress. (AU)