Musculoskeletal Problems among VDU Workers in a Hong Kong Bank

A survey of musculoskeletal problems among visual display unit(VDU) users was carried out in a bank using a self-administeredquestionnaire. The prevalence of complaints in various bodyparts were: neck—31.4%, back 30.6%, shoulder—16.5%,hand and wrist—14.9% and arm—6.6%. Frequent usersof VDU had significantly more musculoskeletal problems in theneck and shoulder regions than infrequent users. Individualmusculoskeletal complaints were associated with various riskfactors including personal attributes, working posture, repetitivemovements and work station design. Back, neck and shoulder problemswere more related to unfavourable working postures, while arm,hand and wrist problems were more affected by repetitive movements.Some risk factors for musculoskeletal problems were specificallyrelated to the nature or design of VDU work. Modification otthe workstation design and improvement in work organizationshould be able to reduce the prevalence of these disorders.