TO SURVEY THE EFFECTIVNESS OF AN ERGONOMIC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM ON DECREASING THE RISK OF MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS AMONG VDT USERS

Developing the information technology specially, using VDTs to doing various official and industrial tasks is one of the serious challenges of human. Although this technology has increased quality and quantity of operations, several studies have shown that continues working with VDTs in nonergonomic situations can cause musculoskeletal disorders. Thus application of ergonomic principles to improvement VDT workstations certainly is the best method to decrease these disorders. This study describes the rule of an ergonomic educational program in improvement the VDT workstations that decreases the risk of causing musculoskeletal disorders. The population of study were computer users of an industrial company in Tehran (85 persons with 29.85 mean years of age and with 6.98 mean years of experience).The working postures was evaluated using RULA method (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment). Then the education program was executed during 45 days using guideline booklets and face-to-face education that resulted to improvement VDTs by users themselves (suitable arrangement of workstation and equipment, adjusting distance between monitor and user, seat height, backrest angle, work–rest scheduling and etc) based on ergonomic principles. Finally, the RULA method was used again to evaluate working postures and RULA final scores (before and after interventions) were analyzed with wilcoxon test. The almost final scores decreased the mean of final scores before and after intervention was 6.3 and 4.8 respectively. Wilcoxon test showed that RULA scores have been decreased significantly after intervention in workstations (P < 0.05).This study showed that educating ergonomic principles can result to improvement workstations and consequently decreasing the risk of musculoskeletal disorders among VDT users.