Evaluation of Ergonomic Risk of Manual Handling of Patients With MAPO Index and Its Relationship with Incidence of Low Back Pain among Nurses

Low back pain (LBP) is the most common and most costly musculoskeletal disorder among nursing profession. The ergonomic risk factors are common causes of lumbar injury. This study aims to assess the risk of LBP among nurses in different wards of an Iranian subspecialty hospital by means of MAPO method and to investigate if there is any relationship between calculated index and the self-reported LBP. The study was conducted in 16 sections of an Iranian subspecialty hospital including 174 wards. Exposed nursing staff (N=54) were asked to report LBP experiences in the past year. Our results indicated that approximately 90% of examined wards were in the red band while only 9% were in the yellow and 1% in the green bands. Among all nurses who worked in the high risk wards, 25% reported suffering LBP during the past 12 months. However, 16% of those who were in the medium risk wards also experienced LBP in the past year. Chi-square test showed a significant relationship between LBP incidence and the level of MAPO index (p=0.004). This study suggests that the frequency of LBP among nurses is higher than the general population. The fact that most of the studied wards felt in the red band indicates the elevated risk for low back in the majority of the hospital wards. It is therefore necessary to implement an ergonomic program in order to modify the observed deleterious condition as soon as possible.