Journal of Back and Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation 29 (2016) 597–601 597 DOI 10.3233/BMR-160682 IOS Press Quality of life, depression and musculoskeletal pain experience among employed women: A controlled study Emre Baskan ∗ , Nesrin Ya˘ gci, Orçin Telli Atalay and Emine Aslan Telci School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey Abstract. OBJECTIVE: The musculoskeletal pain is one of the leading health problems among employed women. The aim of our study was to examine musculoskeletal pain, depression and quality of life (QOL) among employed women and find out the differences with unemployed women. METHODS: A hundred and fifty employed women and 151 housewives were included in our study. We used visual analog scale (VAS) for the assessment of pain, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for the depressive symptoms and Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) for the assessment of QOL. RESULTS: The ratio of musculoskeletal pain among employed women and unemployed women were found as 42.5% and 57.5% respectively. A mild level of depression was found among employed women whereas moderate and vigorous level of depression were found among unemployed women. There were significant differences in terms of depression and QOL parameters. When the correlations of pain, depression and QOL were analyzed, significant high positive relationships between spinal, lower extremity, upper extremity pain levels and BDI and NHP were found only in housewives. CONCLUSIONS: Lower levels of depression among employed women can give the idea that social ambience at work place, focusing at work and economic independence play a role in decreasing depression. Keywords: Employed women, musculoskeletal pain, depression 1. Introduction The changes in the social and economic structure of contemporary societies have led to new lifestyle and a new identity for women. Industrial developments intro- duced changes to women’s life as the labour-force par- ticipation of women increased. Working life has both beneficial and adverse effects on the health of women. One of the most frequent health problems that women face are musculoskeletal disorders. The exposure to higher demands of domestic load at home and demands at work as well as the inability of their anatomic struc- * Corresponding author: Emre Baskan, School of Physical Ther- apy and Rehabilitation, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey. Tel.: +90 2582964258; E-mail: ebaskan@pau.edu.tr. ture to cope with this pain remain as one of the basic causes of these disorders [1–3]. According to World Health Organization (WHO, 1985), musculoskeletal disorders stem from a multi- factorial etiology such as working conditions, physical conditions, work-related organizational, psychosocial, personal and sociocultural factors. Bad working pos- tures, repetitive movements with intense work pace, movements increasing the overload and constraints on the body can be mentioned as the underlying risk fac- tors leading to musculoskeletal disorders. For neck and upper extremities, insufficient relaxation time, over- load, improper use of keyboard typing, long hours of work, vibration, the persistent use of the extremity without support or extending the neck for a long pe- riod of time, low-heat environment, psychosocial fac- ISSN 1053-8127/16/$35.00 c  2016 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved