Affiliations: Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of
Occupational Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden | Department of Occupational and Environmental Health,
Stockholm County Council, Sweden
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Wim Grooten, Occupational and
Environmental Health, Karolinska Hospital, Norrbacka, SE-171 76 Stockholm,
Sweden. Tel.: +46 8 52488876; Fax: +46 8 52488813; E-mail: Wim.Grooten@ki.se
Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of two types of
ergonomic intervention on pain and pain-related disability in the neck/shoulder
and low back regions. A cohort of 492 subjects of various occupations with
non-specific neck/shoulder or low back pain was followed over a five to six
year period. The study subjects were classified into four intervention groups:
no ergonomic intervention, educational worksite intervention, workplace
intervention, and combined workplace and educational worksite intervention. The
group with no ergonomic intervention was used as the reference group. The
changes in pain intensity and pain-related disability from baseline to
follow-up in each of the three groups with intervention were compared to the
changes in the reference group. During the follow-up, 39% of the subjects
had received ergonomic intervention. The average change in pain intensity and
pain-related disability was smaller in the educational worksite intervention
group than in the reference group. The average reduction of pain intensity and
pain-related disability did not differ between the two other intervention
groups and the reference group. Thus, for subjects still at work, ergonomic
intervention seemed to be ineffective for reducing neck/shoulder and low back
pain and pain-related disability.
Keywords: Disability, epidemiology, ergonomics, low back pain, neck pain, occupational medicine
