Body discomfort in poultry slaughterhouse workers

Brazil has the main producers and exporters of chicken meat, which is classified as the third largest world chicken meat producer and lead exporter. This study aimed at analyzing the body discomfort perception in poultry slaughterhouse workers and its associations with the task characteristics. The study included 290 workers, 200 women (34.7 ± 7.7 years) and 90 men (36.8 ± 8.2 years). A body map for evaluating discomfort and an interview regarding organizational issues and criteria of the OCRA method were used. Descriptive statistics and chi-square test (p ≤ 0.05) were used. It was found that 87.6% of respondents performed repetitive tasks, 86.2% performed rest breaks, 82.8% performed job rotation (2-7 tasks) and 61% used tools. It was also found that 67.2% felt discomfort in at least one body region, and the symptoms most often reported were pain, fatigue and tingling. The body regions most frequently cited were: shoulders (62.6%), neck (46.2%), spine (36.4%), forearms (31.3%), arms (29.2%), wrists (25.6%) and hands (25.6%). In sectors artificially cold (n = 204), 54.1% felt cold. There was no association between body discomfort and gender, task characteristics, performance of rest breaks and job rotation, use of tools and time working in the company; however, there was association with cold perception (p = 0.035).