Prevalence and factors of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among hand surgeons

Table 1 Percentage of surveyed hand surgeons with disorders and their requirement of time off work according to sex, age, hand dominance, type of practice, number of institutes, years in practice and annual caseload, n (%)

	Number of respondents	Number of respondents with injuries	Number of Injured requiring time off work
Age (yr)
≤ 45	151	91 (60.3)	10 (6.6)
46-55	146	90 (61.6)	20 (13.7)
56-65	173	102 (59)	42 (24.3)
> 65	108	66 (61.1)	30 (27.8)
Sex
Male	490	292 (59.6)	87 (17.8)
Female	88	57 (64.8)	15 (17)
Hand dominance
Right	518	316 (61)	92 (17.8)
Left	60	33 (55)	10 (16.7)
Type of practice
Academic	171	111 (64.9)	33 (19.3)
Community	186	114 (61.3)	38 (20.4)
Private	182	99 (54,4)	27 (14.8)
Other	39	25 (64.1)	4 (10.3)
Number of institutes
1	544	329 (60.5)	98 (18.1)
> 1	34	20 (58.8)	4 (11.8)
Years in practice
≤ 10	145	86 (59.3)	9 (6.2)
11-20	135	85 (63)	20 (14.8)
21-30	175	103 (58.9)	38 (21.7)
> 30	123	75 (61)	35 (28.5)
Annual caseload
≤ 250	110	55 (50)	19 (17.3)
251-500	273	179 (65.6)	52 (19)
501-750	117	65 (55.6)	19 (16.2)
> 750	78	50 (64.1)	12 (15.4)

Table 2 Percentage of surveyed hand surgeons with diagnosed disorders per region and number of respondents requiring treatment, requiring surgical treatment and requiring time-off work due to their musculoskeletal disorders

Region	Percentage of respondents with injuries	Percentage of injured respondents requiring treatment	Percentage of treated respondents requiring surgical treatment	Percentage of treated respondents requiring time-off work
Neck	30.4	13.9	3.6	4.0
Shoulder	23.1	15.0	4.9	4.0
Elbow	26.0	13.3	2.1	1.5
Forearm, wrist and hand	52.0	27.3	10.0	6.6
Hip and thigh	6.5	3.8	1.4	1.2
Knee and lower leg	12.3	8.1	5.2	3.4
Foot and ankle	9.5	6.7	1.2	1.2
Lower back	34.5	19.4	4.2	5.7