Factores De Riesgo Musculoesqueleticos

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 41 (2011) 671e676

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International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ergon

The impact of ergonomics intervention on psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal symptoms among office workers
Alireza Choobineh a, Majid Motamedzade b, *, Maryam Kazemi c,Abbas Moghimbeigi d, Ahmad Heidari Pahlavian e
a

Research Center for Health Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran Ergonomics Department, School of Public Health and Research centre for Health Sciences, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Hamedan, Iran Ergonomics Department, School of Public Health, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Iran d School of Public Healthand, Research Institute of behavioral Disorder and Substance Abuse, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Iran e Department of Psychiatry, Medical School, Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Iran
b c

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 27 December 2010 Received in revised form 6 August 2011 Accepted 14 August 2011 Available online 1 September 2011 Keywords: Musculoskeletaldisorders Physical job demands Psychological perceived job Office workers

a b s t r a c t
Musculoskeletal disorders have a multi factorial etiology that includes not only physical risk factors but also psychosocial factors. This study aimed to investigate psychosocial risk factors and musculoskeletal symptoms among office workers of an Iranian oil refinery and also to examine the subsequenteffects of ergonomics intervention on musculoskeletal discomfort and psychosocial risk factors. In this study, 73 office workers as a case group and 61 office workers as a control group from an Iranian oil refinery plant were randomly selected and examined. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire and the Persian version of the Job Content Questionnaire (P-JCQ) were used as collecting datatools before and after the interventional program. Low back problem (28.8%) was found to be the most common problem among the office workers. Significant differences found between prevalence rates of reported musculoskeletal in upper back, lower back and feet/ankle regions before and after intervention. Our findings showed that psychosocial variables were not affected by the intervention. The onlyvariables on the P-JCQ that were significantly different pre/post intervention are the physical variables: physical job demands, physical exertion and physical isometric load. None of the other psychosocial variables were found to be significant. With the top management support, improvements in all office workstation components were made successfully. Relevance to industry: Recently, changes in thenature of work draw increased attention to the relation between psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal disorders. The results of the current study indicate that a well conducted implementation of an interventional program can lead to a decrease in musculoskeletal symptoms and to some extent in the psychosocial factors at work. Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Recently,many studies have shown that musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are related to physical and psychological perceived job demands in the work environment (Fredriksson et al., 2001; Choobineh et al., 2006, 2009; Lee et al., 2008; Lapointe et al., 2009; Lin et al., 2009; Warming et al., 2009; Canjuga et al., 2010; Fernandes et al., 2010; Johnston et al., 2010; De Souza Magnago et al., 2010; Dawson etal., 2011;
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ98 811 8255301; fax: þ98 811 8255963. E-mail addresses: alrchoobin@sums.ac.ir (A. Choobineh), motamedzade@yahoo.com (M. Motamedzade), moghimb@yahoo.com (A. Moghimbeigi), heidaripahlavian@umsha. ac.ir (A. Heidari Pahlavian). 0169-8141/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.08.007

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