Musculo-skeletal Disorder of Women Worker Engaged in Shelling Activity of Cashewnut Factory

Women are the main working force in cashewnut industry of Meghalaya, which is in North Eastern part of India. Raw cashewnut requires an elaborate process of sun drying, roasting, shelling and peeling of testa to become suitable for human consumption. Shelling of hard outer shell of cashewnut is time and labour intensive which create severe musculoskeletal problem. Twenty women labour were selected purposively for the study and intensity of body pain, perceived joint discomfort, muscular fatigue of hand grip, postural deviation and relationship between demographic factor with dependant variable i.e. musculoskeletal problem were recorded. Results show that majority of the women felt severe to very severe pain in fingers, wrist and upper and lower arm of both hands and upper and lower back and they perceived more than intolerable joint discomfort while shelling cashewnut. It was also observed that grip strength of the right hand decreased by 6.59% and left hand is 3.23% after completion of the work and also observed that the deviation of spinal column due to squatting posture is more (11.95%) in the lumber region than the cervical region (3.5%). Further analysis shows that there existed a significant positive correlation in between age and intensity of body pain (r=0.552) of women labour and also in between years of involvement and MSD (r=0.576).