Development of a Questionnaire to Find Out the Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders in Farmers of Gujarat

Bhavana Gadhavi, Dr. Yagana Shukla

Abstract: Introduction Musculoskeletal Disorders are the most common cause of severe long term pain, disability, and poor quality of life and reduced productivity. India is primarily an agrarian economy and despite the extensive mechanization of agricultural farming is still a physically demanding job. Because of the nature of work, farm workers are at particular risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The common scale used for analysis ergonomic will not suffice the purpose of study considering the farming process and manual task so a new questionnaire was designed. Methods- The questionnaire was developed following item generation, item pooling, item analysis and final version. It was mandatory to translate in local language by cross cultural adaptation as the target population was farm workers. Concurrent validity was established by co relating WMSDQ with Standardised Nordic Questionnaire (SNQ) which shows that moderate to high correlation so WMSDQ can be replaced with SNQ for study. Internal consistency was established by running PCA and the value of CA (Cronbachs Alpha) for WMSDQ is 0.68 that interpreted the questionnaire is acceptable and reliable for target population. Conclusion The new questionnaire is useful tool for ergonomic evaluation and to find out prevalence of WMSD in Farmers.

Keywords: work related musculoskeletal disorders, questionnaire, validity, farm workers