Team Workload and Performance of Healthcare Workers with Musculoskeletal Symptoms

Abstract

In healthcare professionals, musculoskeletal complaints are the most frequent health disorders with the greatest potential for productivity losses. The teamwork developed by these professionals can be a coping strategy, but it can also be one more demand for the maintenance of performance. For this reason, this research aimed to investigate the relationship between team workload and performance in healthcare workers with different intensities of musculoskeletal symptoms. A survey was conducted with health professionals from 24 institutions of the Brazilian public health system, recruited by stratified probability sampling. Through non-hierarchical cluster analysis, the sample was allocated into three groups based on the intensity of musculoskeletal symptoms. We analyzed the approximation between the variables of “team workload” and “performance” of the groups formed in the previous phase through multiple correspondence analysis. In the group with higher musculoskeletal symptom scores, there was lower performance and a worse team workload. As the intensity of symptoms decreased, team workload and performance became closer variables in a two-dimensional space, indicating that the relationship between team workload and performance is improved in situations of low musculoskeletal symptom intensity.