DATASET - Prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among healthcare professionals: A systematic review and meta-analysis by body region and profession
Description
This database contains data extracted from observational studies investigating the prevalence of self-reported musculoskeletal symptoms among active, qualified healthcare professionals working in clinical settings. Eligible studies included cross-sectional studies and cohort studies reporting cross-sectional prevalence data, published as full-text peer-reviewed articles in English or Portuguese from 2000 onwards. Studies were identified through searches of CINAHL, PubMed/MEDLINE, and Scopus, with the final search conducted on 25 March 2025. The database includes information on study characteristics, including first author, publication year, country, study design, clinical setting, sample size, sex distribution, mean age, mean weekly working hours, healthcare profession, assessment instrument, and recall period. For each study, data were extracted for the nine body regions defined by the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ): neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists/hands, upper back, lower back, hips/thighs, knees, and ankles/feet, as well as overall musculoskeletal symptoms where eligible. Both the number of cases and the corresponding denominator were recorded. The primary outcome is musculoskeletal symptom prevalence during the previous 12 months. In accordance with a predefined nested-window approach, shorter recall periods occurring within one year were also eligible for pooling and were flagged for sensitivity analyses. Studies using the NMQ without an explicitly stated recall period were assumed to use the standard 12-month recall period and were flagged accordingly. The unit of analysis is the profession-specific study arm, representing an independent sample. Original profession labels were standardized into 11 categories: nurses, physicians, surgeons, dentists, physiotherapists, midwives, pharmacists, imaging professionals, allied/support staff, operating-room/surgical personnel, and mixed/multi-professional samples. The database also incorporates methodological quality assessments using the Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS), with studies classified as Good, Fair, or Poor according to the percentage of favourable responses. Data were independently extracted and verified against the original reports, with the source location recorded in an audit log. Overall, the database provides a structured dataset for estimating and comparing the prevalence and anatomical distribution of musculoskeletal symptoms among healthcare professionals, including profession-specific analyses and potential moderators such as age, sex, working hours, and publication year.