Musculoskeletal pain, work posture and physical activity among professional symphony and opera musicians in Sweden

Aims: The objectives were to 1) investigate the point prevalence and the one year prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms among professional classical orchestra musicians, 2) estimate the work posture regarding standing vs. sitting, and the physical activity among the musicians, and 3) investigate associations between pain and gender, work posture, and physical activity.Methods: The study is part of an ongoing national survey investigating the health situation among Swedish professional orchestra musicians. The data were collected from two orchestras. Seventy-eight musicians (80%) participated, aged 45 ±9.6 years with 41% women.Result: Ninety-one percent of the musicians reported pain during the last 12 months; 80% at more than one site. For both men and women the most frequently reported problem within the last year was neck pain (figure 1). While 96% of the musicians had a seated work posture all or most of the time in the orchestra, work posture was more diverse while practicing alone (figure 2). In total 73% (for females 67%; for males 77%) of the musicians fulfilled the Nordic recommendations for physical activity. Binominal logistic regressions including pain prevalence during last 12 months and gender, work posture, and physical activity were significant for hip pain (p=0.020) with gender (Odds ratio 4.9, p=0.007) as significant predictor, and knee pain (p=0.035) with work posture (Odds ratio 0.517, p=0.046) as significant predictor.Conclusion: In harmony with previous studies [1-2], the majority of the examined orchestra musicians experienced pain at some time point during a year. While almost all musicians play in a sitting position during orchestra rehearsals and concerts, playing posture varied more when practicing alone. Regression models including gender, work posture and physical activity revealed that 1) women were more prone to hip pain compared to men, 2) an association between knee pain and standing posture, while 3) no impact was found for physical activity in these preliminary results.