A Study of Farmer's Syndrome in Choongju Area

충주지역 전업농민의 농부증에 관한 연구

To find the prevalence of the Farmer's syndrome and the related factors, we investigated 909 farmers who and older than 30 years and live in Choongju area. The farmers were interviewed individually with a questionnaire from July 18 through 31, 1997. The results are as follows; The prevalence of Farmer's syndrome was 21.0% in male and 45.1% in female. The age prevalence of Farmer's syndrome was higher in thirties and forties than fifties and over sixties in both sex. Farmer's syndrome was significantly higher in low educational status, low income, low family members and more than 20 years of farming group. However, Farmer's syndrome was significantly higher in non smoking and non alcohol intake group, there were no significant differences according to smoking and alcohol intake after stratification by sex. The most frequent symptom in male was lumbago(60.5%), the second was numb limb(49.8%), the third was shoulder stiffness(43.2%) and the fourth was dizziness(31.5%). In female, the most frequent symptom was lumbago(81.3%), the second was numb limb(70.2%), the third was dizziness(62.2%) and the fourth was shoulder stiffness(55.9%). All of these four symptoms are significantly higher in female than in male. With multiple logistic regression for Farmer's syndrome, sex(OR of female=3.3) number of family(OR of <=1.9) and duration of farming(OR of $\geq$2.0 yr=1.5) were turned out to be significant variables.