Musculoskeletal Disorders among Male Tailors in Clifton Karachi Pakistan

Objective: The study was done to assess the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among the workers (tailors) who are working in tailoring occupation and see if they ever consult physician.

Methodology: A cross sectional survey was conducted in various large markets of Clifton area of Karachi city administration from February 2017 to December 2017. Sample size of 278 tailors was chosen by random sampling technique. Nordic questionnaire was used to assess the musculoskeletal symptoms among subjects that include the bio data of respondent, factors associated with the symptoms, pain symptoms, and other problems faced due to symptoms through self-reported questionnaire. The collected data was inputted and analyzed in SPSS v16 and considered significant p value of <0.05.

Results: 78.4% of the participants were observed for musculoskeletal disorder during last 12 months. From total of 278 subjects included in the study 34.9% subjects were in the age group 31-40 years, and majority of them (36.7 %) working from 6- 10 years, and 87.1 % reported working more than 8 hours per day . The most affected anatomical body part was lower back which is 26.6% followed by upper back 18.3 %, neck 12 %, knees 13.3%, ankle 11 %, wrist 7.3%, shoulder 6.9 %, hips 2.3% and elbow 2.3%.72 (33%) individual ever seen a physician while 146 (67 %) not ever seen a physician. There was statistically significant association between the pain and number of working years (p <0.001), and also statistically significant association between working hours per day and pain among the workers (P =0.002). There was no association between the age and sleeping disturbance due to pain.

Conclusion: work related musculoskeletal disorders are high among the tailors and most common complaints include lower back. Age, working years, working hours could predispose the work related musculoskeletal disorder among tailors. Improvement of work posture, ergonomic tools and further research has been recommended.