Abstract: This study's central objective is to determine how several
individual, organizational and ergonomic factors influence the relationship
between job stress and mental workload for workers in an electronics company. A cross-sectional study was made as a test of hypotheses regarding that
relationship. The sample is composed of 95 workers, of both sexes, from the
electronics industry in the metropolitan zone of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Ergonomic conditions were evaluated with the Ergonomic Evaluation List, stress
was evaluated by administering the SWS-Survey to groups of subjects, and mental
workload was evaluated with the NASA-TLX Workload Index. Using Cochran's and
Mantel-Haenzsel statistics, the odds ratio for each of the independent
variables was {e}stimated as a risk factor for job stress, and analysis was
later conducted by means of logistic regression for those risks found to be
significant. Of the 95 worker participants, 26.3% presented a high level of
job stress and 17.9% of the workers were found to present high levels of
mental workload. The results show that working hours, mental demand, temporal
demand, and frustration when faced with a given task may be considered risk
factors for job stress.
Keywords: Mental workload, ergonomics, working hours, risk factors
