Musicians' playing-related musculoskeletal disorders: An examination of physical, psychological, and behavioural factors

Several studies in North America, Europe, and Australia have reported that over 50% of musicians experience playing-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). Research in Performing Arts Medicine has been focused on describing the burden of illness and risk factors associated with PRMDs. Although several risk factors have been cited, few have been measured in the musician population. This thesis reports the results of combining qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate the PRMDs of classically trained musicians. In the first section, relevant research from the performing arts medicine and the occupational medicine literature on risk factors for common PRMDs are reviewed and summarized. The second section reports the design, methods and analysis of a qualitative research study in which 30 musicians developed an operational definition of PRMDs. This definition was used as a case definition in the case-control study presented in Section 3. To examine the physical, psychological, and behavioural risk factors of PRMDs, 281 subjects completed a self-report questionnaire as well as hypermobility and hand span measurements. Finally, Section 4 presents a general discussion of findings and recommendations for future research directions in Performing Arts Medicine.