THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NOISE EXPOSURE, FATIGUE AND SUBJECTIVE MENTAL WORKLOAD

Abstract

SUMMARY: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between noise exposure, fatigue and subjective mental workload (SMWL) in bank employees. This study was performed on 113 bank employees in Iran. Noise pollution in the studied banks was estimated in accordance with the standard ISO 9612 (1997). To determine the SMWL, NASA-TLX method was used. The level of job fatigue of employees was determined using the Swedish Job Fatigue Questionnaire (SOFI-20) and the sensitivity of people to noise was measured using the Weinstein questionnaire. Finally, the predictor variables of mental workload were analyzed using simultaneous multiple linear regression test in SPSS-V16 software. The level equivalent to the noise exposure (Mean ±SD) in the workstations of bank employees was 61.30 dB-A. The Mean ±SD of the final score of SMWL in the studied employees was 71.91±12.79. The results of the simultaneous regression analysis test showed that the fatigue, noise sensitivity, and level of noise exposure predict a total of 0.61 of the variances of SMWL (P < 0.05, df = 112, f = 16.43). Increasing the noise can increase the SMWL of employees by having the effect of increasing fatigue, and this effect is increased by the sensitivity of employees to noise.