An analysis of the effect of computer work station associated pain on work performance

The purpose of this Ex Post Facto research was to assess the association between self-reported pain on perceived work performance with computer work station configuration and computer use. The study was conducted at Lockheed Martin Energy Systems (LMES), Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The study determined if there were relationships between employees with reported pain, employees with no reported pain and the adequacy of the computer work station configuration, time using the computer, frequency of rest breaks and attitudes towards computer work. The study population was volunteer and consisted of employees (N = 879) at LMES who used computers in their jobs. Data were collected over two years (1994-1996).;The data for this study were taken from the Personal Computer Self-Adjusting Functional Ergonomics (PC-SAFE) program. PC-SAFE program was developed and copyrighted by LMES. PC-SAFE is a computer program that automatically calculates and prints out the proper computer work station adjustment parameters based on gender and height.;All volunteer participants were administered the same version of the PC-SAFE computer work station questionnaire and the results were analyzed by using descriptive, t-test and Chi square statistics.;Conclusions for the six research hypotheses were: (1) In this study there were no association between the number of computer work station configuration components and the incidence of pain or absence of pain. (2) Increased daily use of the computer was associated increased reports of pain. (3) Increased number of years of computer use was not associated with the incidence of pain. (4) Continuous or prolonged work with few rest breaks was associated with pain. (5) Pain can affect attitudes towards work. More employees with pain reported not enjoying their work than employees with no reported pain. (6) In this study, the majority of males and females were no different in their perception of "no adverse" effects of pain on work performance.