Variation between seated and standing/walking postures among male and female call centre operators

BMC Public Health

Table 2 Total recording time and variables describing exposure levels and frequency of changes in exposure as defined in Table 1; in total and amongst male and female call centre operators.

				Difference males-females
Variable	All N = 140	Males N = 43	Females N = 97	Difference	p-value ¹
Recording time	Total recording time (hours)
Mean	5.84	5.91	5.81	0.09	0.650
Median	5.98	6.02	5.93	0.09
sd	1.13	1.25	1.07
Range	1.49-8.83	1.49-8.83	3.00-8.54
LEV1	Proportion in seated posture (%)
Mean	74.9	74.1	75.3	-1.1	0.477*
Median	80.6	80.5	80.8	-0.3
sd	16.6	17.3	16.3
Range	6.2-95.4	6.2-93.3	15.9-95.4
FREQ1	Frequency of posture switches (per hour)
Mean	10.4	11.5	9.9	1.5	0.090
Median	9.9	11.3	8.8	2.5
sd	4.9	4.7	4.9
Range	2.5-25.4	2.5-21.2	3.2-25.4
FREQ2	Average duration of seated periods (min)
Mean	11.2	9.8	11.8	-1.9	0.114
Median	9.9	8.7	10.5	-1.8
sd	6.7	6.5	6.7
Range	0.5-39.5	0.5-39.5	1.9-33.8
FREQ3	Average duration of standing/walking periods (min)
Mean	3.1	2.8	3.3	-0.5	0.498*
Median	2.6	2.3	2.6	-0.3
sd	2.3	1.7	2.6
Range	0.8-18.7	0.9-8.0	0.8-18.7
FREQ4	Per cent of time in uninterrupted seated periods > 1 hour
Mean	9.1	4.6	11.1	-6.6	0.013*
Median	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
sd	15.7	11.4	16.9
Range	0.0-78.8	0.0-43.9	0.0-78.8
FREQ5	Per cent of time in uninterrupted stand/walk periods > 1 hour
Mean	1.9	1.5	2.0	-0.6	0.386*
Median	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
sd	6.6	6.9	6.5
Range	0.0-36.5	0.0-36.5	0.0-27.7

¹ Two-tailed t-tests or Mann-Whitney test (*) if significant deviation from normal distribution. Boldface p-values indicate a significant difference (p < 0.05).

ISSN: 1471-2458