The Effect of Awkward Postures and Musculoskeletal Disorder Incidents: A Case Study of Bakery Workers

Abstract

Musculoskeletal complaints or MSDs are common in the bakery industry. Observations and analyses of work posture among bakers are crucial to determine the most practical solution to MSD subjective complaints. This study aims to analyze the impact of work posture on musculoskeletal events in bakery industry workers. This research is quantitative research with a cross-sectional approach. This study recruited 52 bakers. Work posture data was obtained by utilizing the Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) instrument. The subjective musculoskeletal complaint data were collected using the Nordic Body Map (NBM) instrument. The results indicated that most workers (90.4%) were in the young category, 67.3% were male, and 51.9% had a long permanent contract. Most respondents are in the high ergonomic risk category (75%). The lower back (63.5%), neck (25%), and ankle (25%) were subjectively reported by the respondents using the NBM instrument. There was no significant relationship between ergonomic risk and MSD complaints (p-value = 0.721 at α = 0.05). The bakers were exposed to ergonomic limitations and experienced some subjective MSD complaints. However, no significant association was found between ergonomic work posture limitations and MSD complaints. The non-significant finding might be related to the small sample study size or the measurement bias.