Survey on musculoskeletal complaints in workers working from home at computer workstations

Status:

completed

Aims:

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home became, almost overnight, probably the most common work arrangement for jobs at computer workstations both in Germany and worldwide. This lasted for a while and even now, many workers are still working from home, or in a hybrid model in which their place of work alternates between the office and home.

In Germany, working from home as a form of remote work differs fundamentally in legal terms from a teleworking workstation set up by an employer. Owing to the continued pervasiveness of working from home, the model is the subject of debate at various political levels. The German Social Accident Insurance, too, is addressing the issue of safety and health in remote work. The diversity of private equipment and furnishings in home offices leads to wide variation in the ergonomics of these workstations. Past studies report a correlation between a rise in musculoskeletal complaints and higher proportions of work being performed at home (e.g. DAK 2021, KKH 2022). However, these studies lacked comprehensive consideration of the ergonomics of home office computer workstations. Knowledge of the correlations between complaints and ergonomic risk factors, such as the duration of use, positioning of work equipment or the suitability of mobile equipment for the tasks for which it is used, would contribute to improved prevention of musculoskeletal workloads. The factors affecting the physical complaints reported by workers at computer workstations is of particular interest. In an online survey, workers at computer workstations were questioned on their home office arrangements and the health complaints they experienced during the pandemic and at present. The findings should help to reveal the effects of poorer ergonomics, based on the subjective complaints reported. In the future, these findings can be incorporated into directed prevention work by the German Social Accident Insurance Institutions.

Activities/Methods:

In this project, conducted jointly by the DGUV research institutes IPA (Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine) and IFA (Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), a nationwide online survey of workers at computer workstations was performed from September 2023 to April 2024. The study, which included people working exclusively from home, alternately from home and in the office, or exclusively in the office, provided insight into the physical complaints associated with the different computer workstations. In addition to criteria for inclusion in and exclusion from the survey, the questionnaire included questions concerning the respondents’ occupations and an exposure analysis of the home office workstation (ergonomics). Questions were also posed concerning health/musculoskeletal complaints, including pain, mental stress and digital eye strain (computer vision syndrome).

For assessment of the home office workstation’s ergonomic quality, two methods were developed. These were based on the DGUV’s recommendations for computer workstations, and enable ergonomic conditions to be classified. The musculoskeletal ergonomics score (MES) and visual ergonomics score (VES) evaluate the design of computer workstations with respect to exposure to musculoskeletal and eye stress respectively.

The primary research questions focused on the relationship between the ergonomic quality and the subjective indications of musculoskeletal and eye complaints. For analysis of the data, the IFA used the participants’ indications of complaints in the preceding four weeks, whereas the IPA compared the current situation with retrospectively determined situation prior to the pandemic. Logistic regression models were computed to analyse the correlation between complaints and working conditions.

To obtain meaningful data, a target number of 1,000 to 1,500 participants was set, and also achieved.

Results:

The results of the study show the majority of respondents to be working in a mixed model, i.e. both at the office and from home. Three quarters of respondents had a home office workstation that was ergonomically favourable for the musculoskeletal system. Respondents without an ergonomically adequate workstation exhibited an elevated 4-week prevalence of upper and lower back and neck complaints. The correlation to upper back complaints was found to be statistically significant. A statistically significant correlation was also observed between weekly working hours spent working at home and shoulder and upper back complaints. Symptoms of anxiety and depression and also female gender correlated statistically significantly with upper back, neck and shoulder complaints. In contrast, only anxiety and depression symptoms had an influence on the lower back.

With regard to the eyes, only around half of the home office workstations were of ergonomically favourable design. Arrangements detrimental to eyesight, wearing of glasses – particularly reading glasses – and taking less than one break per hour to rest the eyes correlated with eye complaints. These correlations were statistically significant in the univariate regression analysis. Wearing glasses was also a statistically significant influencing factor in the multivariate analysis. Infrequent or no breaks for the eyes were also associated with complaints, although in this case the link was not statistically significant. As had already been shown by the study of musculoskeletal complaints, symptoms of anxiety and depression and female sex of the test subjects were found to have an influence on eye complaints.

Both scores proved to be practicable and useful tools for classifying the ergonomic quality of computer workstations, and can be used in the future in preventive activity.

Remote work from home requires workers to be provided with careful guidance, to raise their awareness of potential risk factors for musculoskeletal and eye complaints. Such guidance would equip them to set up workstations of high ergonomic quality in their homes. Even a few working days per week in an ergonomically less favourable environment can provoke musculoskeletal complaints.

The results of the online survey have already been or are in the process of being published and can serve as an empirical basis for the formulation of directed preventive measures to reduce musculoskeletal workloads during remote working from home.

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