An improvement in our understanding of MSDs at the population level will facilitate the implementation of preventive measures and individually tailoring workplace programs. Therefore, in the present study, we aim to provide a more in-depth view of MSDs among two construction occupations. The main research question in this questionnaire survey with a follow-up period of one year is:
1. What is the six-month prevalence of self-reported long-lasting or regular musculoskeletal complaints among bricklayers and supervisors and to what extent are these complaints recurrent over the course of one year?
Among the bricklayers and supervisors reporting longlasting or regular musculoskeletal complaints we asked:
2a. To what extent are these musculoskeletal complaints perceived as work-related by the worker?
2b.What is the extent of the experienced problems during work, and does this change over the course of one year?
2c. What occupational tasks or activities were perceived as causes or aggravating factors for the complaints?
Methods
Sample and procedure
A priori we aimed at estimating the prevalence of MSDs with a precision of 5-6%, and expected that the prevalence of MSDs would be around 40% [8]. This leads to an estimated sample size of 257–369 among both occupations. Therefore, we aimed at including 300 participants for each occupation. Based on previous results we expected the response rate to be around 40% [30]. Therefore, we randomly selected 750 bricklayers and 750 construction supervisors from a Dutch registry comprised of all employed Dutch construction workers. The random selection was performed by the independent data manager of the registry, frequently assisting in selecting samples for research purposes.