Writers cramp in office workers-an epidemiologic and psychosomatic study

The study is aimed at investigating the occurrence of writers cramp in office workers, drawn from ten major offices of Kanpur to determine the nature and relationship of various emotional factors in the development of this disability. The observations on writers cramp cases were compared with a group of normal and diseased controls. Out of a surveyed population of 3,325 office workers, there were 18 cases of writers cramp. Cramp cases scored significantly higher on all the subscales of Middlesex hospital questionnaire than the diseased and normal controls. Emotional stress of sufficient intensity was recorded in an increased percentage (66.70%) of writers cramp cases as compared to diseased and normal controls (53.3% and 46.7% respectively). The most frequent area of disturbance was severe maladjustment found in 38.9% of writers cramp cases, while in diseased and normal controls the type of stresses were of a different nature.