Work-related Musculoskeletal diseases and occupational injuries in health care workers

Abstract

Recently, the health care system of Korea has grown bigger, specialized and modernized, but the healthcare workers' physical well-being is pushed back on the priority list. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) involving days away from work per 10,000 full-time workers are 2.6 according to the statistics of Ministry of Labor, but it is much lesser compared to US statistics, which is 60.5. The smaller number is mainly due to the different method of calculation between Korea and U.S.; the proportion of all the parties of hospital care system is not calculated in Korea and the real portion is underestimated. Even though there was no exact figure regarding MSDs and occupational injuries, MSDs must be acknowledged that lower back pain and trip are most commonly developed due to an excessive strain and unstable position, and the important factor are acknowledged by their occupation, task, psychosocial factor; on the other hand, the occurrence of occupational injuries are influenced by the tenure, psychosocial state, and the level of education. In addition, for the treatment of the health care workers, its work-relatedness must be concerned, and prevention that takes their variable conditions into consideration can have a higher effectiveness.