J Korean Community Nurs.  1996 Dec;7(2):400-409.

Industrial Fatigue and Low Back Pain of the Workers

• Kim SL
• Moon JS

Abstract

To investigate industrial fatigue and low back pain, the questionaire survey for subjective symptoms of fatigue and low back pain was carried out among 591 male workers aged 20-55 employed in an automobile industry in Korea. Workers participated to this study were divided into low back pain group(LBP) and control group, according to the self-reports by written questionaires. The subjective sysptoms of fatigue comprised three groups of 10 items each, representing dullness and sleepiness(level of cerebral activation), difficulty in concentration(level of motivation) and bodily projection of fatigue. The resultant data were processed for chi2-test, t-test and a pearson's correlation coefficient to confirm the relationships. The results were as follows: 1. 30 items of fatigue subjective symptoms exeptone item, 'lack in perseverance', were directly associated with low back pain. 2. The percentage of fatigue complaint were sig nificantly higher in LBP group. 3. Of the 30 items of fatigue subjective symptoms, the highest percentage was accounted for 'eye strain'(27.9%), followed by 'whole body feels tired' and 'legs feel heavy'(22.9%), 'feel like lying'(21.4%), 'feel a pain in the low back'(18.7%), 'feel drowsy'(16.4%) and 'feel stiffness in the neck or the shoulders'(16.2%) in the order of sequence. 4. The average weighted score for the first group of fatigue items(dullness and sleepiness) was the largest among three groups and was followed by the second group(difficulty in concentration) and the third group(bodily projection of fatigue) in the order of sequence, suggesting the heavier shift work stress of the workers. 5. In the groups of the aged 30-40, work duration of 5-7yrs, heavy work amount and irregular work speed, significant high fatigue complaints were revealed in terms of eye strain, whole body feels tired, legs feel heavy, feel like lying, feel a pain in the low back and feel stiffness in the neck or the shoulders. 6. A significant negative correlations were shown between age, work duration and eleven subjective symptoms while positive reciprocal correlations were shown between eleven items with one another.

MeSH Terms

Automobiles
Deception
Fatigue*
Humans
Korea
Leg
Low Back Pain*
Male
Neck
Shoulder