BACKGROUND: Work-related musculoskeletal discomforts (WRMDs) has been counted as the major common occupational health problem worldwide. However, WRMDs has been less studied on the furniture workers in low to middle-income countries that were major to export furniture products compared to high-income countries. Particularly, it is rarely using job analysis approach with physical ergonomic risk to study.
PURPOSE: The WRMDs of nine body regions were explored by job categories for Indonesian furniture production workers. According to the WRMDs reports to identify the highest risk group among job categories, the physical ergonomic risks were assessed to determine the risky working-postures for working task.
METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 50 employees of production fields as study subjects from a furniture factory of Bali, Indonesia.
Data was collected using a self-reported structured questionnaire Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) for exploring the WRMDs of nine body regions. In the physical ergonomic assessment, working tasks was used as data analysis unit. The postures of work tasks were assessed by interview and direct observational method with videography analysis. The Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) was used to analyze working postures. The six well-trained raters were recruited to determine the levels of physical ergonomic risks using REBA from representative snapshot records. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the WRMSDs of the nine body regions. Intraclass correlation coefficients and the 95% confidence interval (CI) were applied to determine the levels of physical ergonomic risks.
RESULTS: The overall rate of WRMDs is 88% in the current study. For WRMDs among nine body regions, the highest percentage was in low back (54%), followed by shoulder (50%), neck (48%), wrist (40%), ankle feet (38%), knee (36%), upper back (32%), thighs (26%), elbow (22%). Using job analysis approach, the percentages in each job category had different body regions with WRMDs. For example, the WRMDs had over 50% among body regions with overloading in job categories were neck discomforts (60%) in carpenter low back (100%) in sewing shoulder (77.8%) in packing. Subjects who worked in sewing job category was reported that most all the body regions had 50% or above with the WRMDs. After reviewing the videography analysis with 100% agreement between two observers, six working tasks were identified in sewing job categories. The total severity level of physical ergonomic risk was categorized in high-risk by REBA scale. It was attempted in work task one (ICCs 0.980, 95% CI 0.955, 0.992). Hence, it needs further investigation and immediately implement a change. Using two way summarize, it found the degree of against optimal increments distributed in neck, trunk, upper and lower arm, and wrist.
CONCLUSION: Using job analysis approach resulted on possibility of finding the overall WRMDs, the distribution of body part discomforts and the severity levels of physical ergonomic risk. The suitable steps of job analysis approach can be a concept might consider identifying WMSDs that previous studies were not conducted yet. The findings would help in the assessment methods for occupational health nursing and related team. Further, it would help to formulate ergonomic intervention strategy forthcoming manufacturing industries.

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