Musculo-skeletal Disorders among Video Display Terminal Users: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Software Company, Kolkata

IT has revolutionized economies throughout the world, more so in India. West Bengal has also got its share of IT boom. But with this, it has brought in the class of human resource of Video Display Terminal workers operators that and along with that can cause a host of occupational problems in them namely musculoskeletal, ocular and psychological systems. The current study had assessed some of the musculoskeletal disorders occurring due to VIDEO DISPLAY TERMINAL use.

An analytical cross-sectional study was done in a Software Company of Sector V, Kolkata, the IT hub of West Bengal. Of all the employees, required sample size of 206 was selected by Simple Random Sampling. After proper permissions and consent, socio-demographic variables were collected by standardized instruments, musculoskeletal morbidity was collected by Nordic questionnaire, and ergonomic practices were obtained by checklists.

90.78% of population showed some form of musculo skeletal symptoms. They were highest in fingers, elbows, wrist, shoulder, upper, while legs and lower back showed low morbidities. Increasing age, female sex, increasing years of work, repetition of work, poorer ergonomic scores all showed to have increased the symptoms. The regionwise ergonomic scores revealed how the poorer scores affected the musculo skeletal systems adversely. Several individual adverse ergonomic practices were also elicited.

The study goes hand to hand with many other studies throughout the world and also in India. However, a much higher morbidity has been found in this study probably due to a symptom based questionnaire. The adverse practices obtained here goes well with other relevant studies.

This study puts occupational health problems of VIDEO DISPLAY TERMINAL users, and upholds the need of future multicentric cohort studies along with implementation of proper measures to ameliorate the effects of this occupational hazard.