Psychosocial work factors and shoulder pain in hotel room cleaners.

Background: Hotel room cleaners have physically demanding jobs that place them at high risk for shoulder pain. Psychosocial work factors may also play a role in shoulder pain, but their independent role has not been studied in this group.

Methods: Seventy-four percent (941 of 1,276) of hotel room cleaners from five Las Vegas hotels completed a 29-page survey assessing health status, working conditions, and psychosocial work factors. For this study, 493 of the 941 (52%) with complete data for 21 variables were included in multivariate logistic regression analyses.

Results: Fifty-six percent reported shoulder pain in the prior four weeks. Room cleaners with effort-reward imbalance (ERI) were three times as likely to report shoulder pain (OR 2.99, 95% CI 1.95-4.59, P = 0.000) even after adjustment for physical workload and other factors. After adjustment for physical workload, job strain and iso-strain were not significantly associated with shoulder pain.

Conclusions: ERI is independently associated with shoulder pain in hotel room cleaners even after adjustment for physical workload and other risk factors.