Absenteeism and accidents at work are considered a public health problem due to the socioeconomic and functional repercussions imposed on the worker and the country. The characteristics of the work environment can increase occupational risks and, consequently, the incidence of work absenteeism and accidents.

To identify which occupational characteristics are associated with absenteeism and work accidents in work-related muscle, synovial, and tendon disorders.

We performed an observational study. We obtained the data through the National System of Medical Assistance - SINAM (DATASUS) considering the notifications resulting from muscle disorders (M60-M63), synovial and tendon disorders (M65-M68) in Brazil between the 2006 and 2022 years. The analyzes correlated absenteeism and work accidents with the occupational profile, with the following variables: (1) repetitive movements; (2) stressful environment; (3) time for breaks; (4) working hours longer than 6h/day; and (5) more than one employment relationship. We assessed the normality of all variables using the Shapiro-Wilk test. In the absence of normal distribution, we used the Spearman Correlation test. All analyzes were performed using the R Core Team software, considering an α≤0.05.

Absenteeism were associated with a stressful environment (r2 = 0.953, p-value = 0.000), time taken for breaks (r2 = 0.866, p-value = 0.000), working hours longer than 6h/day (r2 = 0.627, p-value = 0.007) and more than one employment relationship (r2 = 0.948, p-value = 0.000). Similarly, work accidents had a statistically significant association with the stressful environment (r2 = 0.928, p-value = 0.000), time of breaks (r2 = 0.846, p-value = 0.000), working hours greater than 6h/day (r2 = 0.606, p-value = 0.009) and more than one employment relationship (r2 = 0.939, p-value = 0.000). On the other hand, there was no statistically significant correlation between repetitive movements and absenteeism (r2 = -0.051, p-value = 0.846) or work accidents (r2 = -0.153, p-value = 0.558), demonstrating that, despite the studied population being workers with musculoskeletal disorders, repetitive movements did not influence cases of absenteeism and work accidents. Furthermore, absenteeism and work accidents were significantly associated (r2 = 0.981, p-value = 0.000) showing that these workers may be more susceptible to this type of injury.

Stressful environments, working hours longer than 6h/day, time for breaks and more than one employment relationship had a greater impact on absenteeism and accidents at work in cases of muscle, synovial and tendon disorders reported in Brazil compared to the variable “repetitive movements”.

This study provides insight for future investigations. In contrast to expectations, the stressful environment was the variable best correlated with absenteeism and work accidents in Brazilian workers with musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, it is pertinent to continue this investigation to understand how the stressful environment, and other variables analyzed, had repercussions on absenteeism and accidents of workers diagnosed with musculoskeletal disorders related to work.