A Study on Musculoskeletal Disorders and Job Stress of Workers in a Shipbuilding Company

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) have become a hot issue in the Korean workplace for the past several years. So many manufacturing companies have tried to improve the work environments for the control and the prevention of the WMSDs. This study investigates the relation between WMSDs and job stress from 965 workers in a shipbuilding company by questionnaire analysis. The seven job stress factors which are job autonomy, job insecurity, organizational system, workplace culture, unfair compensation, relationship conflict, and job requirement were analyzed. The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders symptoms were 12.9%. The analysis showed that job stress by job autonomy was higher than that by job stress factor. WMSDs were associated with job requirement, organizational system, unfair compensation and workplace culture. The results could be used to design the management program for the reduction of job stress.

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