Introduction Compared to open surgery, laparoscopic surgery puts the surgeon at higher risk for developing work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) due to long-lasting static and awkward body postures. Intraoperative work breaks showed promising results regarding perceived discomfort without prolonged surgery durations. The primary aim of the current study was to determine whether 2.5-minute passive and active work breaks would reduce ratings of perceived discomfort (RPD) among gynecologists performing simulated laparoscopic procedures compared to no work breaks. The secondary outcomes were performance, muscular activity and fatigue, upper body posture, heart rate and variability and workload. Methods Surgeons (9F, 12M) performed 90-minute simulations without and with breaks after 30-minute work blocks. Primary and secondary outcome parameters were recorded and the interventions were evaluated by a self-developed questionnaire. Generalized estimating equations were used for statistical analyses. Results RPD increased over time to a mean of 0.9 (CR10 Borg Scale) without a significant effect of intervention. The HRV-metric SDNN tended to be higher and shoulder muscular fatigue tended to be lower in the intervention conditions compared to the control condition. No significant effects of both interventions were detected for performance, muscular activity, joint angles, heart rate or workload. The overall likelihood of implementing breaks at own initiative was about 66%. Conclusion Intraoperative work breaks may counteract shoulder muscular fatigue and increase heart rate variability without performance loss. Active breaks have the greatest potential to be implemented and need further investigation into their acceptability, practicality and effectiveness in reducing the risk for WRMSD in future studies.
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Luger et al. (2024) studied this question.
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