Prevalence of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders among Housing Construction Workers in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

The housing construction industry is one of the leading industries worldwide as far as cases of musculoskeletal disorders are concerned due to the strenuous nature of the work. A good understanding of ergonomic risk factors in this industry is paramount in implementing the right preventive measures for musculoskeletal disorders among construction workers. The main objective of this study was to establish the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among housing construction workers in Mombasa County, Kenya. The target population was 4,400 housing construction workers drawn from 44 housing construction sites that were registered by the National Construction Authority in the year 2016. Descriptive cross sectional study design was used. Stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were used to draw a random sample of 354 respondents. The inclusion criterion was respondents who were above 18 years of age and had worked in this industry for over three years. A standardized Nordic questionnaire was self-administered to collect data on reported cases of musculoskeletal disorders from the respondents as a result of their daily work activities. An observation checklist was also used to record how construction activities were being performed by workers, postures applied while working, and the number of workers performing a task. Data collected from the questionnaires was cleaned, coded, tabulated and subjected to statistical analysis. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0 was used to analyze the data. Summary statistics was used to analyze qualitative data while regression analysis was used to establish relationship between dependent and independent variables. It was established that majority (98.1%) of the workers reported to have had body pain as a result of their daily work activities within the past 12 months. Lower back pain (68%) was the most reported musculoskeletal disorder symptom. Only 2.7% of the respondents had sought medical advice for musculoskeletal disorders experienced within a period of 12 months. From the study, it was established that factors contributing to musculoskeletal disorders were physical factors, organizational factors and individual factors. Regression analysis established that taking all the independent variables constant at zero, the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders was 32.1%. Further, it was established that at 95% level of confidence, physical factors, organizational factors and individual factors significantly influenced prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (p<0.05). Analysis of variance to test the fitness of the regression model gave a significant F value of 154.569 (p = 0.000) hence the null hypothesis was rejected. This study therefore concluded that majority of housing construction workers in Mombasa County were experiencing musculoskeletal disorders and very little had been done to control these disorders. The study recommends safety trainings for all construction workers before deployment, particularly on ergonomics so as to encourage safe work practices, enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 2007 by construction site managers and routine site inspections to ensure compliance to the law. Finally, the study recommends awareness creation among housing developers on the importance of implementing engineering controls, administration controls and work-practice controls, in addition to the use of personal protective equipment in preventing musculoskeletal disorders among construction workers in Mombasa County.