Are pressure measurements effective in the assessment of office chair comfort/discomfort? A review

• The relation between pressure measures and office chair comfort has been analysed.
• The method used for evaluating subjective comfort seems to be critically important.
• Pressure parameters potentially capable of describing comfort has been identified.
• Future work is needed due to the controversial results of the few available studies.

Nowadays, the majority of jobs in the western world involves sitting in an office chair. As a result, a comfortable and supported sitting position is essential for employees. In the literature, various objective methods (e.g. pressure measurements, measurements of posture, EMG etc.) have been used to assess sitting comfort/discomfort, but their validity remains unknown. This review therefore examines the relationship between subjective comfort/discomfort and pressure measurements while sitting in office chairs.The literature search resulted in eight papers that met all our requirements. Four studies identified a relationship between subjective comfort/discomfort and pressure distribution parameters (including correlations of up to r = 0.7 ± 0.13). However, the technique for evaluating subjective comfort/discomfort seems to play an important role on the results achieved, therefore placing their validity into question.The peak pressure on the seat pan, the pressure distribution on the backrest and the pressure pattern changes (seat pan and backrest) all appear to be reliable measures for quantifying comfort or discomfort.