I disturbi muscolo scheletrici a carico dell'arto superiore nel personale sanitario: revisione dei dati di letteratura

Musculoskeletal disorders are a well known problem in health care personnel. Up now research focussed mainly to low back pain, while scant attention has been devoted to the upper limb. Using PubMed, Embase and Scopus we searched for studies on work-related upper limb symptoms in health care personnel We included studies: published since 1990, with at least 25 persons and a response rate >50% and which assessed symptoms using the “Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire”. Based on the selection criteria, 18 articles were collected in 4 different groups: dentist, nurses, physiotherapists, laboratory technicians. The highest prevalence of neck symptoms was observed in dental personnel (73% - 54%) and in nurses (54.7% -13.2%). Considering the shoulder, prevalence ranging 65% - 49.8% were observed in dentist, and from 71.9% to 35.1% in nurses. For the elbow, the laboratory technicians and dental personnel had the higher values (23% and 27-18% respectively). Finally, for the hand / wrist, the highest prevalence was found in laboratory technicians (59%) and in dentists (54 - 47.5%). As a conclusion, the results show that the upper limb symptoms should be considered a significant problem in health workers, and adequate preventive strategies should be developed and implemented.