Abstract
Background: Working in a canteen will involve more than one activity e.g. cutting, grinding, washing. These activities may lead to stress and muscle fatigue. Objective: To analyze health effects in canteen staff working at the university. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in canteen staff. A questionnaire was used to compare the level of feeling e.g. strength, force, interest before and after work between canteen staff using a subjective judgment scale from 1-10, together with assessing muscles: extensor of the wrist, biceps, triceps at different times by using surface electromyography (EMG). A paired t-test was used to analyze data. Results: 23 canteen staff participated the project (100%). Canteen staff did not report any significant difference in feelings e.g. freshness, keenness, force or strength that differentiated before work and after work. Extensor of the wrist seems to be the most muscle using part in a canteen activity. Conclusions: Stress levels related to working in a university canteen are low as is muscle fatigue measured by EMG. However, performing repetitive work in a canteen could lead to muscle fatigue or stress so break interval time may be important for preventing muscle fatigue and reducing stress.
Highlights
Classic problems due to working in kitchens or canteens are lower back pain, musculoskeletal disorders and stress [1]-[9].This may be because workers have to perform several activities e.g. cutting, grinding, rolling or washing in a small area in addition to stress relating to time constraints and consequent pressure
Task activities in a university canteen may differ from commercial kitchens because commercial kitchens may have higher workload with more demands from customers leading to increased stress and muscle fatigue
The information relating to feelings; freshness-fatigue, alertness-sleepy, force-exhausted, strength-weakness, interest-lack of interest, keenness-boredom, vibrant-dull of subjects at different times were ranked from 1-10 (1 = the least, 10 = the most)
Summary
Classic problems due to working in kitchens or canteens are lower back pain, musculoskeletal disorders and stress [1]-[9] This may be because workers have to perform several activities e.g. cutting, grinding, rolling or washing in a small area in addition to stress relating to time constraints and consequent pressure. Working in a canteen will involve more than one activity e.g. cutting, grinding, washing These activities may lead to stress and muscle fatigue. Objective: To analyze health effects in canteen staff working at the university. A questionnaire was used to compare the level of feeling e.g. strength, force, interest before and after work between canteen staff using a subjective judgment scale from 1-10, together with assessing muscles: extensor of the wrist, biceps, triceps at different times by using surface electromyography (EMG). Performing repetitive work in a canteen could lead to muscle fatigue or stress so break interval time may be important for preventing muscle fatigue and reducing stress
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