Article Text
Abstract
Introduction Low back pain is a very common problem among workers in the healthcare sector worldwide.
In the international scientific literature, healthcare workers involved in caring for dependent patients are among those mos prone to acute and chronic musculoskeletal disorders, especially the dorsolumbar spine. According to WHO 2011, there are around 19.300.000 nursing staff members working in healthcare facilities around the globe (85% are women). Most healthcare workers manually handle patients on a daily basis, activity ‘potentially’ in terms of workplace prevention, thus hospital management to adopt effective risk assessment, management and containment measures. The large number of nursing staff are affected by musculoskeletal disorders, preventing them fro performing activities for manually handling patients; the level of sick days taken due to musculoskeletal problems is extremely high. These aspects raise inefficiency, generate higher costs and lower the quality of care.
Methods MAPO Methodology (ISO TR 12296) has been used for evaluating the risk of low back pain among healthcare workers in 3 hospitals in Curitiba. One of the characteristic features of the MAPO Method is that it combines all the various risk factors into a single formula. Three hospitals in Curitiba (surgical and orthopaedic sectors) ahs been the target of this study.
Result The risk value in each sector/hospital has been stablished based upon the different patients, according to their diseases and workplace conditions.
Discussion The MAPH Method approach to assessing and preventing risk is based on the typically global, interdisciplinary and participatory principles of ergonomics.