Zusammenfassung
The concepts of comfort and discomfort in sitting are
under debate. There is no widely accepted definition,
although it is beyond dispute that comfort and
discomfort are feelings or emotions that are subjective
in nature. Yet, beside several subjective
methodologies, several objective methods (e.g. posture
analysis, pressure measurements, electromyography (EMG)
are in use to assess sitting comfort or discomfort. In
the current paper a theoretical framework is presented,
in which comfort and discomfort were defined and the
hypothetical associations with underlying factors were
indicated. Next, the literature was reviewed to
determine the relationships between objective measures
and subjective ratings of comfort and discomfort.
Twenty-one studies were found in which simultaneous
measures of an objective parameter and a subjective
rating of comfort or discomfort were obtained. Pressure
distribution appears to be the objective measure with
the most clear association with the subjective ratings.
For other variables, regarding spinal profile or muscle
activity for instance, the reported associations are
less clear and usually not statistically significant.
Nutzer