Individual and occupational risk factors for knee osteoarthritis – Study protocol of a case control study

Table 1 Content of method inventory and outcome parameters

Parameter	Intention	Outcome	Source*
sociodemographic factors	matching variables and basic description	distribution	[39]
musculoskeletal symptoms	description of health status	health status	[40]
frequency and duration of e.g. kneeling, squatting, lifting and carrying	occupational exposure	cumulative effects	[35, 41, 42 and own development]
diseases & injuries, drinking alcohol, smoking	possible confounding factors	cumulative effects	[35, 41, 42 and own development]
frequency and duration of sports	possible confounding factors	cumulative effects
frequency and duration of leisure time activities	possible confounding factors	cumulative effects
questions on hormone balance/imbalance	possible confounding factors	cumulative effects	[41]
questions on knee status	selection variables		[35]
knee status: grade & localities of knee OA, secondary disorders and kind of diagnostics	to be compared with occupational tasks		[own development]

* [35, 41, 42] cite research articles describing different studies and results. The use of the very items in the ArGon questionnaire was kindly permitted by the responsible authors on request of the study group.

ISSN: 1471-2474