A study of the experiences of participants following attendance at a workshop on methods to prevent or reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders amongst sonographers

A growing number of sonographers are being affected by pain and disability associated with their working practices. Many of these individuals are scanning whilst in considerable discomfort, or having to take sick leave when the pain makes scanning impossible. Severe cases will result in sonographers being unable to scan, and forced into a change of career, or early retirement.In order to help address this problem it was decided in June 2009 to host a workshop for sonographers at the University of the West of England, to introduce participants to a variety of ideas and techniques which could potentially prevent or reduce musculoskeletal disorders associated with working practices.Following the overwhelming popularity of this first session, three further workshops were organized. A total of 96 students have attended these four workshops, and all participants have been asked to complete detailed evaluation questionnaires. In order to determine any long-term benefits of the workshops, participants were also asked for their permission to be followed up at six week and twelve week intervals after attendance. A total of 23 participants were telephoned six weeks after attending the workshop and ten were telephoned at twelve weeks.Results demonstrated that the workshop was extremely beneficial for the majority who attended. The positive effects lasted for several weeks following the event, however, after three months the majority felt they needed additional reinforcement of the information, ideas and techniques learnt during the original workshop.