ABSTRACT

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of muscle pain and the area of pain which can be caused by computer work and further identify the relationship be-tween pain and computer work. Method : We surveyed 600 university students with a questionnaire and 321 cases of them were used for statistical analysis. The questionnaire was made up of 36 queries including general questions and specific questions about the computer work(computer type and accessory, work type, work room, work time, rest time, degree of pain, region of muscle pain and so on). Questions about computer workstation were translated and modified from “Creating the ideal computer workstation: A step by step guide” developed by Ergonomics Working Group. The higher the score, the keenness of pain tended to be higher. In order to analyze the data, in-dependent t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and frequency distribution were used by em-ploying SPSS(11.0).Results : 80.4% of the total students reported muscle pain in the following areas: should-er/neck(38.4%), back(28.5%), and hand/wrist(25.9%). The computer accessories such as monitor, chair, and keyboard showed significant correlation to the pain. The students who were suffering from pain due to workstation scored significantly high in the test. Conclusion : This study suggests that the poor computer workstations are highly correlated with musculoskeletal diseases. Students and office clerks who use computer in a daily basis may need educations to prevent musculoskeletal diseases and may benefit from ergonomic evaluations.