Gender differences in the relations between work-related physical and psychosocial risk factors and musculoskeletal complaints

Risk factors for upper‐extremity musculoskeletal disorders in the working population

“…As reported in some studies undertaken in working populations (1,2,14,16,23,24), women have a higher risk of upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders than men, but the study failed to quantify this association because of the occurrence of an interaction between sex and physical demand of the task in the final multivariate model. Except for age and prior history of upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders, the risk factors for upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders differed between men and women.…”

Is there a gender difference in the effect of work-related physical and psychosocial risk factors on musculoskeletal symptoms and related sickness absence?

“…For musculoskeletal symptoms, we found Gender differences in risk factors for musculoskeletal symptoms a relevant gender difference for at least one symptom region for 6 of 22 risk factors; the women had a higher risk in only two cases. In an earlier systematic review (20), strong evidence for gender differences was only found for three risk factors, for which two men had the higher risk. For the remaining risk factors, we found either inconclusive evidence or no evidence for a difference.…”

“…The aforementioned review (20) used different cutoff points, namely, 0.75 and 1.25. Therefore, in our study, it was harder to find a work-related risk factor that implied a larger risk for the women than in the review.…”

“…An earlier review (20) attempted to answer the question of whether there indeed are gender differences in vulnerability to work-related physical and psychosocial risk factors between men and women. Strong evidence of a gender difference was found for the effect of exposure to heavy lifting, hand-arm vibration, and awkward arm postures.…”

Pattern and Physiotherapy Management of Shoulder Pain A 5-Year Retrospective Audit of a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

“…Previous studies have highlighted some individual risk factors, such as age, arthritis, obesity, diabetes and thyroid disease [10][11][12][13], while a strong relationship between working conditions and shoulder disorders has been reported in other studies [14][15][16]. The gender impact on shoulder disorders are however not clear and is a topic of continue debate [17,18]. Some studies reported higher prevalence for female [4,19,20] while others found no strong link for gender bias in SP prevalence in the general population [7,21].…”