Analysis of Ergonomic Risk Factors in Relation to Musculoskeletal Disorder Symptoms in Office Workers
Abstract
The development of technology has increased the number of activities workers are able to perform while using visual display units (VDUs), as well as the amount of time spent executing those activities; the developing technology, however, has also increased the probability of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which can decrease a worker’s productivity and result in a company’s economic loss. Workers at PT. X use VDUs 8 hours per day. This research aimed to analyse the risk factors that are the likely cause of some MSD symptoms experienced by PT. X workers, such as individual and psychological factors, the work environment, VDU, chair and the work patterns. This research was a cross-sectional study that used proportional stratified random
sampling with 95 participants. The study found that most of the workers experienced MSD symptoms (78.6%), of which 70.52 percent were chronic complaints, 1.37 percent were acute complaints and 6.71 percent were a combination of both acute and chronic complaints. On the other hand, 16.84 percent of the respondents did not have any MSD complaints. Risk factors that were shown to be related to MSDs include high BMI (p = 0.031), work patterns period (p = 039), job stress perception (p = 0.005) and work posture (p = 0.036). Work posture relates to seat length (p = 0.041) and seat height (p = 0.005). Job stress perception is related to the details of assignments or work (p = 0.047), duration of work (p = 0.04), duration of rest (p = 0.000), work demands (p =0.018) and job control (p = 0.009). Based on multivariate analysis, the most dominant risk factors associated with MSD complaints were the duration of rest, work posture and job stress perception.
Keywords: MSDs, office ergonomics, VDU, work posture
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