Occupational physical and emotional fitness

1 Occupational injuries and pain in the workplace: An overview

In general, physical pain and injuries, particularly musculoskeletal discomfort (MSD), are a collection of painful injuries regarding the tendons, nerves, muscles, carpal tunnel syndrome, and tendonitis [1, 2]. Musculoskeletal discomfort can happen to any employee, irrespective of gender or age, and is typically directly connected to a person’s job [3]. It can explain 42%–58% of occupational health concerns [4]. The relationship between occupation and the incidence of MSD is not completely based on the physical work environment strain [5, 6]. Musculoskeletal discomfort risk factors are related to both psychosocial and physical characteristics [7, 8]. Research in Europe provided evidence that socioeconomic status can contribute to the MSD burden, especially for spinal conditions, osteoporosis, and arthritis [9]. Another study from the United Kingdom (UK) revealed that MSD, especially in the shoulder, back, neck, and knee, was more widespread in areas that were economically disadvantaged [10].

Indeed, MSD is an increasingly significant subject in the workplace. More than one-third of American workers experience prolonged work stress, lack of opportunity for advancement, and heavy workloads topping the list of contributing factors [11]. MSD-related anxiety and depression influence more than 55 million American adults, almost 25% of the adult population [12]. Main depressive disorder is now expected to cost $210.5 billion a year [11].

Regarding the world’s occupational health, there are limited resources for using the elements and instructions of sports medicine for the prevention or treatment of occupational injuries and pain [13, 14]. Consequently, decision makers in this field have gradually demanded that researchers and consultants determine that occupational health and safety (OHS) interventions are not only influential, but also effective concerning their resource implications, with a focus on sports medicine instructions [2, 16].

It is known that many types of occupational overuse syndromes (e.g., repetitive strain injury) occur in the workplace that can be managed with physical modalities [17]. Researchers have revealed that jobs demanding physical activities [18], long work hours [19], and shift work [20, 21] raise the risk of occupational injury. Researchers have also discovered differences in the injury risk according to ethnicity/race [22], gender [20], age [23], geographic region [24], and education [25].

There are also some types of physical pain, such as lower back or shoulder pain which is related to psychological factors [26], but apparently like physical pain, there might be misunderstandings about pain’s source. Reports state that 58% of employees with injuries in the USA visit a primary care physician instead of a mental health specialist [27]. Besides workers with an injury suffering overuse and health behaviors related to occupational injuries [28], work-related injuries exact enormous financial burdens on employees, communities, workers, their families, and the economy [29, 30].

2 Occupational emotional and physical fitness

Globally, mental health is known as the primary reason for long-term work disability and sickness absence [31, 32]. This is crucially important since those conditions are treatable and avoidable in most cases [33] if recognised correctly in the early stages. Nevertheless, to manage such pain efficiently and to avoid its becoming recurrent and chronic is a key challenge. Several people- and workplace-associated and emotional factors play a part [34].

Most of the current occupational treatments for emotional aspects of the workplace are concentrated on the decrease of symptoms, with comparatively few researchers reporting separate occupational outcomes [35]. It should be noted that particular symptoms related to emotional aspects are very important because they not only impact performance, but also productivity in addition to the well-being of individuals and employees, which potentially could have a tremendous economic impact [36]. It is not shocking that numerous policy makers consider workplace mental health an important public health matter and are looking for advice on the kinds of interventions that may be influential [37, 38]. However, there still has been a lack of attention devoted to the emotional aspects of individuals and team performance in the workplace [39].

Emotional fitness is a novel term in occupational health; its aim is to merge the familiar aspects of physical fitness, conventionally known in the realm of metabolic health and cardiorespiratory as body composition, physical strength, flexibility, and agility with the emotional and mental features of human performance [40]. Emotional fitness’s main features include an individual’s wellness, purpose, sense of belonging, and needs [40]. From an organizational perspective, occupational emotional fitness is achieved once companies support employees’ belonging, purposes, essential needs, and opportunities to assist them to meet their goals successfully [40]. Neglect of employees’ emotional fitness might be a main reason for missed work days [40].

Physical fitness is the foundation of health and well-being [41, 42]. Throughout the last decade, a growing number of studies and reviews have offered evidence for the effectiveness of physical exercise and attention to the elements of sports medicine in the workplace to cure work-related injuries [43–46]. Strong evidence supports multidisciplinary pain treatment programs and physical exercise with attention to the aspects of sports medicine that are influential for occupational emotional and physical fitness [2, 48]. Different treatment regimens exist, from complete rest to high-intensity strength training, but not all have been validated and can be repeated.

3 Treatments

The effectiveness of behavior (cognitive) therapy, antidepressants, analgesics, spinal manipulation, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are supported by some evidence [49–51], but the essential facilities, costs, and side effects should be noted. For most influential treatments, the impacts are at best miniscule and only short-term. Unfortunately, there is not sufficient evidence for many commonly used interventions for clinically relevant long-term influences, particularly for office-based interventions and treatments based on the suggested instructions for health in sports medicine [2, 52] and the guidelines of the American College of Sports Medicine [53].

If resources are rare, it is likely that a physician will believe that patients with more physical problems exercise less and will develop an inappropriate exercise treatment with this in mind. Additionally, direct supervision of an exercise regimen is expected to be useful [53]. It is known that the general advantages of exercise training are to be seen in biomechanical [54], neurological [55], and molecular systems [56] that contain myofibrillogenesis as a long-term result.

There is a large body of research recognizing a range of significant work factors that might influence employee mental health, perceived job dissatisfaction, employment status, job insecurity, and organizational change [57]. Essentially, workplace interventions for common mental and physical disorders might include a mixture of facilitating standard clinical treatments with more particular workplace interventions. Thus, cheap and easy treatments and practical applications with a concentration on the physical and psychological features of individuals is suggested.

4 Future suggestions

There exists an important question: what is the specific protocol for emotional and physical fitness for employees in the same organization yet have varying nationalities (Asian, European, American, etc.) with different cultures in addition to their various physical characters?

We believe it would be interesting and useful to examine different packages and protocol of physical fitness, enriched by emotional fitness, with therapeutic targets for various occupational cultures in different societies for employees and employers.

Developing combined protocols of physical and emotional fitness has the potential not only to be effective on the physical aspects of individuals, but also to represent a dynamic balance between managing essential needs, cultivating feelings of belonging and purpose, and flourishing at the individual level. This achievement may be helpful for the applicability and generalizability to other cultures for employers and employees, and it may improve aspects of their social and personal lives.

Conflict of interest

None to report.