ERGONOMIC PREDICTORS OF VISUAL-SYSTEM COMPLAINTS IN VDT DATA-ENTRY WORK

The relationship between ergonomic demands and visual system complaints was investigated among video-display-terminal (VDT(operators at two state agencies. Ergonomic factors suspected of posing visual demands were objectively assessed at 40 data-entry workstations. A questionnaire survey was also administered to gather information on somatic discomfort, demographic and personal characteristics, and extent of VDT use for operators at these workstations, and for several hundred additional operators in the two agencies. Regression analyses indicated that personal factors such as age and use of corrective eyewear accounted for relatively little of the variance in measures of visual system complaints. However, regression models that incorporated viewing distance and illumination measures accounted for 38%-49% of the variance in these measures. The present investigation is one of the few attempts to assess objectively an array of physical workplace factors and to examine, within a multivariate framework, their influence on visual system complaints. © 1990 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.