Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders in Steel Industry Workers and its Association with RULA’s Method Results

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are the main cause of occupational disorders and  disabilities in the developing countries. The goal of this study was to assess the prevalence of  the MSDs in steel Industry workers using Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ), and  its relationship with the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) results.  The present research was a descriptive-analytic study conducted  on the Iranian steel industry in 2018. A total of 17 workstations were randomly selected and  NMQ was used to explore the prevalence of the symptoms of Work-related Musculoskeletal  Disorders (WMSDs). Afterwards, the workers’ postures were assessed via RULA. Finally,  the results were analyzed in SPSS 22 through the chi-square test, independent t-test, and  analysis of variance (ANOVA) method. This study showed the significant relationship between the results from the  Nordic assessment of the back, knee, and neck within the past 12 months and profession type  (p<0.05). However, the final assessment scores, corrective measures priority, and Nordic  assessments of the back, neck, and knee of the workers showed no significant relationship  with work experience (p>0.05). The findings of this study revealed that in order to considerably reduce the  musculoskeletal disorders in the steel industry workers, immediate measures must be taken  to correct the back and neck postures especially in the scrap shear operators, welders, ingot  shear operators, electrical technician, tower operator, and guillotine operators.