Ergonomic assessment of musculoskeletal disorder's risk level among workers of a factory battery

Musculoskeletal disorders are the most common occupational injuries and constitute a huge global health problem with substantial economic and human cost as well as negative impact on the quality of life. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and level of risk among the workers of the assembly line of a battery factory.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study performed in 2013, 138 workers aged between 20 and 46 years from assemble line of a battery construction company that have been selected randomly and filled out the NORDIC questionnaire.
Also, for the assessing physical posture during work, RULA method were applied and filled out by researcher. Statistical analyzing were done by SPSS (v.21).
On the basis of the findings of this study majority of the recruited population suffer from upper back 42 Workers(%30.4) and neck pain 36 workers (%26.1) and lower back pain 25 workers (%18.1) then by knee pain 16 workers (%11.6) respectively. Also results of RULA method analyzing showed that risk level score for 31.2, 53.1 and 15.6% of all postures were 4, 3 and 2 respectively.
The prevalence of MSDs in the workers was high. Most of postures are needed to be corrected because of high score in RULA method. Based on the obtained results, the most significant ergonomic problems in workers were found to be awkward postures, manual material handling and back bending and twisting.