Association between duration of daily VDT use and subjective symptoms

✍ Scribed by Tetsuya Nakazawa; Yasushi Okubo; Yasushi Suwazono; Etsuko Kobayashi; Shingo Komine; Norihisa Kato; Koji Nogawa

• Book ID: 101435050
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 85 KB
• Volume: 42
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0271-3586
• DOI: 10.1002/ajim.10133

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Background

Although visual display terminal (VDT) work has become a common task among office workers, surveys which would help to determine the allowable duration of daily VDT use are limited.

Methods

We investigated more than 25,000 workers three times over a 3‐year period using a self‐administered questionnaire. Three factors, namely mental, physical and sleep‐related symptoms, were extracted by factor analysis. Adjusted means of each factor score were compared with the duration of daily VDT use by general linear model.

Results

Physical symptoms score became higher with increasing duration of daily VDT use without a threshold effect. Mental and sleep‐related symptom scores of the workers using VDT for more 5 hr/day were significantly higher than that of the groups using VDT for >1, 1–3, and 3–5 hr/day.

Conclusions

Duration of daily VDT use was linearly related to the physical symptom score, and was non‐linearly related to mental and sleep‐related symptom score with a threshold effect of 5 hr/day. Am. J. Ind. Med. 42:421–426, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.