Objectives: Seafaring is a specific occupation due to long-term isolation from the society and the family, thus it is likely that workplace bullying would be prevalent among seafarers. Recent investigations have indicated that workplace bullying is associated with stress and adverse psychosomatic outcomes. Chronic neck and upper limb pain often occurs in the absence of obvious tissue pathology. The investigations in the recent years have shown that the epidemics of non-specific occupational arm pain have arisen in various countries without any abrupt corresponding changes in occupational physical workload. It has been suggested that psychosocial factors matter more for chronic upper limb pain than physical exposures and activities. We investigated the prevalence of bullying among seafarers in Lithuania and the associations between workplace bullying and musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb. Methods: We conducted a study among seafarers attending the mandatory health examination in the Maritime Medical Centre in Klaipeda. We investigated workplace bullying, using the Negative Acts Questionnaire (S.Einaresn & H.Hoel). We measured the overall feeling of victimization and its associations with diagnosed by the medical doctor musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb over the last six months in the random sample of seafarers. Totally 370 seafarers answered the questionnaire (response rate 53%). We used the statistical software SPSS 13.0 for Windows and performed the logistic regression analysis for the calculations of the associations between workplace bullying and upper musculoskeletal disorders, controlling for age, physical workload, occupational status, exposure duration. Results: Our results indicated that prevalence of occasional bullying in the workplace among seafarers was 10.1%, severe bullying 3.8%. The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb was 5.2%. The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb among the reg.
Malinauskienė et al. (Sun,) studied this question.