Influence of hand and smartphone anthropometric measurements on hand pain and discomfort

Abstract

A good mobile phone design may increase the productivity of users, as well as their comfort. To achieve mobile users’ satisfaction, there is a need to come up with an ideal measurement that would not strain the human's body parts used to control the devices. To investigate the correlation between smartphone and hand anthropometry measurements and the development of hand discomfort and pain. 89 Ahlia University students between the ages of 17- and 30-year-old participated in this study. Participants completed a demographic data sheet and had both of their hand dimensions and grip strength measured. A total number of 89 participants were recruited in this study with (57.3%) females and (42.7%) males. 38% have had hand pain recently while 61.8% did not experience any hand pain. There was weak negative correlation between the phone size ( r = −0.04, P = .7), hand size ( r = −0.08, P = .5), and the hand grip strength ( r = −0.03, P = .7) all with the reporting of hand pain. For the phone screen size and the hand lengths ( r = 0.22, P = .13) there was weak positive correlation. Mobile phone manufacturers should take into account the users’ comfort when designing their phones as this could lead to hand pain and other musculoskeletal problems. Furthermore, hand pain is multifactorial so hand size; phone size and grip strength may be taken into account.

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