evaluation of musculoskeletal disorders risk factors in painting workshops of furniture industry

background and objectives: painting workshops are part of the woodwork (carpentry) industry in which despite advances in technology, the work force fulfills most of the roles in the production process. since such manual activities are often performed with awkward postures due to lack of workers’ awareness and inappropriate design of tools and working conditions, ergonomic assessment of work environment and working condition improvement seems essential. designing evaluation checklist and calculating ergonomics indexes can be useful in this assessment. this study was conducted on workers of painting workshops of furniture industry with the objectives of a) evaluation of level of exposure to musculoskeletal disorders (msds) risk factors and b) determination of action category levels in the workshops. methods: after conducting task analysis in the painting workshops, 47 workers were assessed by the designed ergonomic checklist and ergonomic indexes were calculated. finally, the risk factors were determined. ergonomics indexes were considered as the criteria to demonstrate the workshops ergonomic conditions and to determine action category for working condition improvement. nordic musculoskeletal disorders questionnaire was also applied to determine prevalence rate of msds among workers. data were analyzed using statistical tests including t-test and test of proportion. results: mean of age was 28.78 (range=17-58). the highest prevalence was reported in lower back (38.3%). statistical analysis revealed that there were significant associations between occurrence of msds and calculated ergonomics indexes (p<0.05). the higher the means of ergonomics indexes (showing ergonomically better working conditions), the lower msds prevalence rate would be. totally, 85.11% of the workers studied were in the first priority of action category (i.e., ergonomic measures should be done as quickly as possible). inappropriate hand tools, awkward postures and unsuitable organization were determined as risk factors in the workshops studied. conclusion: the designed checklist was found to be an appropriate, rapid and low cost tool for ergonomic evaluation of working conditions and determining measures for ergonomic improvement. in the painting workshops most problems were originated from inappropriate hand tools, awkward working postures and unsuitable work organization