Iranian Journal of Ergonomics

Introduction: The prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in computer users is high. The purpose of this study was to evaluate ergonomic assessment musculoskeletal disorders risk in computer users determine the effect of an eight-week corrective exercises program on reduction of musculoskeletal pain.

Material and Methods: In the first phase of the study, RULA technique and Nordic questionnaires were used to evaluate postures and musculoskeletal disorders of 84 computer users of Tuyserkan administrations. In the next phase, 30 individuals for participating in a corrective exercises program intervention divided into two groups namely, experimental (n=15) and the controls (n=15). Subjects were re-evaluated after period of eight weeks. Data was analyzed using independent and dependent t-tests.

Results: The overall prevalence of pain was seen in neck, lumbar, shoulders, back, carpal and hand, elbow respectively. In posture analysis, 61.3 and 53.6 percent of subjects were in action level of 2 in left and right limbs respectively, 32.2 and 44.1 percent of subjects were in action level of 3 and 2.4 percent in level of 4 in right side. After the corrective exercise intervention, there was 38.3% significantly reduction pain for upper limbs (p=0.001) and 38.7% for lower limbs (p=0.006).

Conclusion: This study showed that frequency of musculoskeletal problems in neck, lumbar, shoulders, back, wrist was generally high among our subjects, and selected corrective exercises could reduce the risk level and pain.

Introduction: Studies have shown that one of the factors affecting occupational injuries is employees’ awareness of work situation. Therefore, it is important to identify factors affecting situational awareness. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of fatigue and cognitive failures in predicting work situation awareness among employees.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study with a descriptive-correlational design. The sample consisted of 154 employees of the Tehran Pars Khodro Company in 2015, who was selected by stratified random sampling method and responded to questionnaires of fatigue from Chalder et al. (1993), cognitive failures from Broadbent et al. (1982) and work situation awareness of Sneddon et al. (2006). Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis.

Results: The results showed that there were significant relationships between fatigue, cognitive failures and work situation awareness (P < 0.01). Also, fatigue and cognitive failures predicted almost 14% and 25% of the variance of work situation awareness among employees, respectively (P < 0.05).

Conclusions: The reduction of employees’ cognitive and emotional capacity could reduce their awareness of work situation.