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Patient Handling Tasks And Muscle Fatigue Among Health Professionals In A Ghanaian Teaching Hospital

2023; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 55; Issue: 9S Linguagem: Inglês

10.1249/01.mss.0000983704.18934.4a

1530-0315

Evans Yayra Kwaku Ashigbi, Dennis Assibey, Augustine A. Acquah, Ellen Afriyie Mensa-Bonsu, James Attobra Kablan, Martha Nuwordu, Mukadas O. Akindele,

Health, Medicine and Society

Health professionals especially Physiotherapist and Nurses perform various patient-handling tasks. In less resourced environments, these tasks expose professionals to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) due to the absence of patient-handling devices. Fatigue and exertion during manual patient-handling tasks elevates risk of WRMSDs. PURPOSE: To evaluate the levels of fatigue and exertion associated with patient-handling tasks among Physiotherapists and Nurses at the Ho Teaching Hospital. METHODS: A cross-sectional data from 110 participants (96 nurses and 14 physiotherapists) was analyzed. Video recordings and photographs taken while participants performed 8 selected patient-handling tasks. A task analysis approach was used to provide a descriptive report of the patient-handling tasks. Rodgers muscle fatigue assessment (MFA) was used to assess muscle fatigue. RESULTS: Wheeling patients from one unit to another, transferring patients from sitting on a chair to bed and transferring patients from wheelchair to a vehicle were reported by participants 21-46 (37.5%-82.1%) to have high level of fatigue specially, at the wrist, arm, shoulder, neck and back. Exertion (RPE) was also reported by 30, 33, 28 and 40 (27.3%, 30%, 25.5% and 36.4%) participants to be maximum for tasks such as: transferring patient from sitting at edge of bed to wheelchair, transferring patients from sitting to standing, turning patients in bed: from supine to prone lying and transferring patients from sitting on a chair to bed respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Most patient-handling tasks performed by Physiotherapists and Nurses may expose them to high risk of fatigue and exertion. This may be mitigated by mechanizing patient-handing tasks.