Adherence to Ergonomic Principles in Workstation Practices: A cross-sectional Study of Academic and Administrative Staff of Bishop Stuart University

Abstract

A significant number of studies in the past have failed to show the level of adherence to ergonomic principles in workstation practices between the academic and administrative staff members of a higher institution of learning. While contemporary empirical literature dwells on different aspects of occupational Ergonomics, this article is designed to present which of the two categories of staff of Bishop Stuart University adhere better to ergonomic principles in their respective workstation practices. More and more often, these two categories of staff members, though coexist in the same Niche, have their duties sometimes interwoven. The sad implication associated with this is the difficulty to define the employment status of some staff members at some certain point in our study. On this note, a historical background check is done, to subvert the problem. An analytic cross-sectional study was carried out on the two campuses of Bishop Stuart University within Mbarara City. A total of 112 participants participated in this study. Individual study participants were samples using the techniques of convenience and snowball. The tool used was a structured and validated questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using Excel and SPSS version 25. Study findings revealed that academic staff adhered better than administrative staff to virtually all the principles of ergonomics in their workstation practices. It is presumed that this finding tuned out like that, because of differences like the work and level of education. Also, it was noted that the most widely applied principle was principle 1, which is working in a neutral position, we had n=46 (41.1%) among the academic staff members and n=17 (38.6%) among the administrative staff applying the principle. This study sought to investigate which of the two categories of staff members in BSU adhere better to ergonomic principles in their respective workstation practices. The study also, established that there is a need for workers to inculcate ergonomic principles into their workstation practices. Premised on the result obtained, it thus recommended that future researchers should consider the health implications of failure to adhere to ergonomic principles in workstation practices. Keywords: Ergonomics, Principles, Academics, Administrative, Staff, Workstation