Premium
Association between duration of daily VDT use and subjective symptoms
Author(s) -
Nakazawa Tetsuya,
Okubo Yasushi,
Suwazono Yasushi,
Kobayashi Etsuko,
Komine Shingo,
Kato Norihisa,
Nogawa Koji
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.10133
Subject(s) - medicine , duration (music) , physical therapy , association (psychology) , psychology , art , literature , psychotherapist
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.