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Review
. 2017 Aug 8;55(4):314-337.
doi: 10.2486/indhealth.2016-0191. Epub 2017 May 9.

Musculoskeletal disorders: OWAS review

Marta Gómez-Galán  1 , José Pérez-Alonso  1 , Ángel-Jesús Callejón-Ferre  1   2 , Javier López-Martínez  1
Affiliations
Review

Musculoskeletal disorders: OWAS review

Marta Gómez-Galán et al. Ind Health. .

Abstract

The prevention of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) is very important in the world. Governments and companies are the most interested. The objective of the present work is to review the literature on the applications of the OWAS method in the diverse sectors or fields of knowledge and countries from its publication to March 2017. The use of OWAS method has been classified by categories of knowledge, by country and by year. The search was made by selecting only the main collection of the Web of Science. This was selected by the option "Advanced search" using the term OWAS (ts=OWAS) for the time period of 1900 to 2017. A total of 166 results were found, consisting of conference papers and articles in scientific journals. In conclusion, the OWAS has been applied mainly in two sectors: "Manufacturing industries" and "Healthcare and Social assistance activities". This method needs to be complemented with other indirect or direct methods. Also, whenever the OWAS has been used, whether individually or together with other methods, musculoskeletal disorders risks have been detected, this perhaps being an indicator to review the evaluation parameters because overestimating the risk.

Keywords: Ergonomics; OWAS; Observation methods; Posture evaluation; Prevention.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Flow diagram of the OWAS-application process.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Publications by field of knowledge.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Publications by country.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Number of publications in each field of knowledge by country.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Number of publications in each field of knowledge by year.
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