Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among the office staff of a communication service company and its relationship to work load and occupational fatigue

Musculoskeletal disorders are a class of occupational injuries that have high prevalence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and its correlation with mental workload and occupational fatigue among office workers in a communications service provider company in Tehran, Iran. This study was conducted on 94 employees of a communication services provider company. Job content questionnaire (JCQ) was used to assess the physical and psychological needs of the jobs. The nordic questionnaire was used to investigate the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in various organs and risk assessment of workplace stations was performed by the rapid office strain assessment (ROSA) method. The mental workload of participants was assessed through NASA's workload index (NASA-TLX) and occupational fatigue was assessed by the swedish occupational fatigue inventory (SOFI). Data were analyzed using SPSS software and descriptive statistics, independent t-test, chi-square, one-way ANOVA, and Tukey's post hoc tests. According to the results, the most pain and discomforts were observed in the neck (65.94 %) and knees (60.63 %). The results also showed that 71% of the subjects were at the warning and need for ergonomic interventions risk level. The relationship between the mental workload and its subscales with musculoskeletal disorders was significant (P-Value=0.05, r=0.96). Also, the relationship between occupational fatigue and its subscales with musculoskeletal disorders was significant in all cases (P-Value<0.001). Considering that the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders is influenced by mental workload and occupational fatigue, it is necessary to take measures to reduce the mental workload and occupational fatigue