Archives of Occupational Health (Oct 2018)

The Effect of Education on Improving the Working Conditions of Computer Users

  • Asieh Abbasi,
  • Bahram Kouhnavard,
  • Amir Hoshang Mehrparvar,
  • Hamideh Mihanpour

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 4
pp. 225 – 232

Abstract

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Introduction: A large part of the compensation payments is allocated to the musculoskeletal disorders of the injured employees. The economic losses imposed by these disorders affect not only the individuals, but also the organizations and communities. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of educational intervention on improving the working conditions of the computer-using employees working in Yazd University of Medical Sciences. Method: This semi-experimental study was conducted among the employees of Yazd University of Medical Sciences. In this regard, 100 computer users were randomly selected and the study was conducted in three stages of investigating the current situation, implementing the educational intervention, and re-investigating the situation. We collected the information one month before and one month after the educational course. For this purpose, we used the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) checklist 1910/0900 (31 questions).We analyzed the data using SPSS version 19 and run Chi-square and descriptive statistics to determine the frequency. The significance level was also considered at 0.05. Results: We found that the postures of the participants were unfavorable before the intervention and they were unconscious about it. However, after the intervention, we observed a significant change in their postures (P 0.05). In other words, we cannot change the inappropriately designed desk or workstation by the training intervention. Conclusion: Interventions based on the ergonomic training had a positive effect on the improvement of participants' posture at work. This improvement one month after the intervention can confirm the sustainable effectiveness of such programs. In addition, educational intervention did not have any effect on the workstations; the training program could not change the workstations that were undesirable in terms of ergonomics.

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