Subjective Mental and Physical Assessments of Workload and Its Correlation with Wrist Disorders of Workers in the Assembly Line Workers of a Porcelain Company

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed at measuring the mental and physical workload and its association with the prevalence of wrist disorders. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 female workers working in the assembly line of a porcelain company. The mental and physical workloads and also the prevalence of wrist disorders were measured using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) questionnaire, the OCRA method, and the Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire for wrists and hands, respectively. Results: The results showed that 63.3 of the participants had discomfort in their wrist and hands. The Mann-Whitney test results showed that OCRA risk levels were significantly higher in those with wrist pain than those without. The NASA-TLX results revealed that the physical demands and effort (78.79 +/- 19.562 and 78.37 +/- 20.002, respectively) had the higher scores among the 6 subscales of NASA-TLX, which were significantly higher in those with wrist pain. Conclusions: The findings suggested a high rate of physical and mental workloads and also the wrist disorders in the assembly line workers of the porcelain company. It seems that mental workload is one of the risk factors associated with the incidence of MSDs. Therefore, the high amount of mental workload should be considered as a risk factor.