The effect of sit-stand workstations to decrease sedentariness in office work: tests of 2 systems with and without automatic reminders. (September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Barbieri, Dechristian; Srinivasan, Divya; Mathiassen, Svend Erik; Oliveira, Ana Beatriz
• Is Part Of: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting. Volume 60:Part 1(2016)
• Page Start: 465
• Page End: 465
• Publication Date: 2016-09
• Subjects: Human engineering -- Congresses; 620.8205
• DOI: 10.1177/1541931213601105
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1541-9312

Abstract

Sedentary behaviors in office workers has become a major public health concern and several initiatives have been proposed to break up sedentary behavior patterns during the performance of computer-intensive office work (Neuhaus et al., 2014; Toomingas et al., 2012). Among such initiatives, the use of sit-stand workstations has been suggested to be one of the most promising by recent reviews (Commissaris et al., 2015). However, there still is only limited scientific evidence showing how effective sit-stand workstations are, in reducing sedentary behaviors and also documentation of their sustainability of use in studies of regular office work (i.e. as the "newness" of the system wears off, with time since introduction). This study aimed to document user behaviors and compare the use of two sit-stand workstation based interventions among two groups of administrative office workers: an "autonomous" group in which these workstations were introduced following some general ergonomic guidelines, and another "feedback-system" group in which the sit-stand tables were furnished with an automatic reminder system: users were prompted to accept, delay or refuse pre-programmed changes in table position, and if they accepted, the system automatically raised the table to a high (i.e. standing) position. This system was programmed for 10 minutes of standing after every accumulated 50 minutes of the table being in a low (i.e. sitting) position. In addition to documenting average use of the two sit-stand workstations, the sustainability of their use over two continuous months since their introduction was also studied. The results averaged over two months of usage of the two interventions showed that the percentage (%) sitting time was 87.4 (84.9-89.2) and 84.0 (83.5-85.4) on average ( P =0.001), and the frequency of switches between sitting and standing was 0.3 (0.2-0.3) per hour and 0.7 (0.6-0.7) per hour ( P =0.001) in the autonomous and feedback-system groups respectively. These usage behaviors were found to be stable over the entire 2 months of use in both groups. Thus, the sit-stand table system integrated with the automatic reminder system led to more reduction in sitting time and more switches in posture between sitting and standing as compared to the traditional sit-stand table, and behaviors of both groups were seen to be sustained over the 2-month intervention period. In conclusion, a semi-automated sit-stand table may thus offer an effective contribution to making sedentary behavior patterns more variable among office workers, and thus aid in preventing negative health effects associated with prolonged sitting times.