Musculoskeletal system disorders and working conditions evaluation in furniture production companies

Aim of the study. To research the work conditions of the employees of furniture manufacturing companies and to define the ergonomic risk factors which affect the people; also to determine their relation to the skeletal muscle system alterations of the employees. Methods. Cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire based survey was conducted with the employees of 5 medium-sized and small companies located in the City of Kaunas. The research period: June through September 2008. The total of 449 employees from the manufacturing departments participated in the survey. The research consisted of two stages: 1) the questionnaire-based survey; 2) the evaluation of the work conditions and risk factors. Each of the respondents completed the questionnaire providing some general (personal) information about himself/ herself and answering the questions regarding subjective health evaluation, psychosocial factors, professional activities and work conditions. The questionnaire was designed following the methodology offered by scientific literature. The statistical data analysis was carried out using the statistical analysis software SPSS 12.0 for Windows. Results. 66.8 percent of the survey participants were satisfied with the current ergonomic work conditions and 33.2 percent were unsatisfied. In terms of the most harmful professional factors by which affect the employees for more than 4 hours per shift, the following opinions were expressed: 72.7 percent of the employees mentioned the noise, 35.0 percent thought it was vibration, 43.4 percent indicated the lifting of heavy items, 27.4 percent mentioned the painful and tedious position of the body and 88.0 percent pointed out monotonous hand movements. The employees of cutting, sewing and upholstery departments were 2.9 times higher tendency for elbow pain, 2.6 times for shoulder zone pain, 2.3 times for the pain in the upper back area and 2.2 times for the neck pain than the employees of other departments. The employees of finish department are 1.8 times more prone to wrist pain and 1.6 times to lower back pain. The employees of cutting and sewing departments were exposed to more than twice higher risk of getting shoulder zone injuries than the employees of other departments. They were also the most prone to the upper back (GS=2.1), neck (GS=2.0), elbow (GS=2.2) and wrist (GS=1.6) injuries. Frequent professional psycho-emotional stress was statistically clearly related to the neck, upper back, hip, knee, and foot pain. The second risk zone (RI 10<25, enhanced load) featured 30.2 percent of the employees from the wood preparation and processing departments, 26.3 percent from the finish departments, 30.8 percent from the cutting, sewing and upholstery departments, 12.7 percent from the assembly and packaging departments. The third risk zone (RI 25