Santos et al. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:60 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/60 R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E Impact on the Quality of Life of an Educational Program for the Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders: a randomized controlled trial Antonio C Santos*, Markus Bredemeier, Karen F Rosa, Vinicius A Amantéa, Ricardo M Xavier Abstract Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) are a major cause for concern in public health and the main causes of sick leave. Treatments for WMSD have given disappointing results; prevention is the best strategy, but results of preventive measures have not been consistent. To the best of our knowledge there are few studies in literature that evaluated the impact of a specific program aimed at preventing WMSD on the quality of life of employed persons. Methods: One hundred and one clerical and production workers in a steel trading company were enrolled in an open-label randomized controlled clinical trial (parallel groups) to compare the efficacy of an educational program for primary prevention of WMSD with control intervention. The primary outcome was a change in the physical functioning domain of the quality of life (QL) measured by Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36). The intervention group underwent six consecutive weekly sessions concerning specific orientations for the prevention of WMSD, while the control group received general health education in an identical schedule. The SF-36 and theses Work Limitation Questionnaire (WLQ) were evaluated at weeks zero, five and 26. Results: Baseline characteristics of the interventions groups were comparable, and both groups comprised predominantly young healthy individuals. No significant differences in the variation of the SF-36 and WLQ between the groups were observed at weeks five and 26. However, both groups demonstrated improvement in some aspects of SF-36, suggesting that both educational interventions have beneficial impacts on QL. Conclusions: A specific educational program aimed at the preventing of WMSD was comparable with general health orientation for the improvement of QL and work capacity in a sample of healthy workers during a six month period. Open Access Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00874718 Trial Registration Background Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) are a major concern for public health and frequently lead to temporary or permanent work incapacity [1,2]. The etiology of WMSD is complex, and includes ergonomic, individual, psychological and social factors [3-5]. In the * Correspondence: acsantos@hcpa.ufrgs.br Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, R. Ramiro Barcelos, 2350, Porto Alegre, 90035-903, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil USA, 4.26 million nonfatal work-related injuries and ill- nesses were reported in private industry during 2004, representing an incidence of 4.8 cases per 100 equiva- lent full-time workers. A significant portion of all events (1.26 million, 29.6%) were related to days spent away from work, and approximately 0.4 million of these were attributed to musculoskeletal disorders [1]. In specific working populations, the prevalence of WMSD can be as high as 22-40%, according to a recent review [6]. In a cohort study concerning industrial and clerical © 2011 Santos et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.