Study of Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders and Identification of Factors affecting them among Furniture Industry workers with Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) Method

Furniture industry is known as a part of semi-heavy industry in Iran. The role of labour force is inevitable in production processes. Therefore risk factors affecting occupational musculoskeletal disorders in this industry must be evaluate. Identification and assessment of these factors is important measure to prevention and controlling of musculoskeletal disorders. Production performance in the furniture manufacturing activities is almost accompanied by transportation (heavy, large and rigid load). Since there are so many furniture makers in Qom, this study was chosen for the evaluation and determination of risk factors inducing musculoskeletal disorders in this industry.

In this cross- sectional study, after identifying work stations and work tasks in furniture manufacturing workplaces, Nordic and demographics questionnaires were used for the determination of prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and individual characteristics, respectively. Also, for evaluation of risk factors inducing musculoskeletal disorders was used Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) method. After all, the obtained data were analyzed using statistical methods including: t-test, and chi-square and fisher’s exact tests.

The results demonstrated that the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in this industry is high. Also, job tenure and work duration are the main important factors in prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. On the other hand, evaluation of work postures indicated that duty type and work posture were the main important factors in prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, too. Finally, by applying the standard tables of REBA method, action categories of correction strategies were determined and after identifying risk factors, control strategies were recommended.

The results of this study demonstrated that the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in back, knee, leg, hand and hand wrist has been high and body postures of these workers should be improved. More training and instructions are needed to have good position in the workplaces. Therefore, it is suggested that by performing correction strategies in order to optimization of work stations design, ergonomic condition, and periodic training of workers for a long time, improve their workplaces.