Risk assessment for musculoskeletal injuries due to manual patient handling in hospital wards with MAPO Indexo

Manual handling of disabled patients is a common task in any health service and is generally associated with back pain among workers. Therefore we must determine the suitability of each working area to perform such activities in a safe way. Several factors determine what makes a safe working area, including staff number and training, environment, and available aid equipment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working on a new Technical Report (ISO TR 12296) regarding manual handling of people in the health sector. Its main objective is the improvement of working conditions of the caregivers with the final goal of reducing musculoskeletal injuries while taking into account the safety and care quality of patients. The document works as a guide to assess risks associated with manual patient handling and gives preventive measures and ergonomic solutions. One of the risk assessment methods suggested in the ISO Technical Report is the MAPO Index (Movement and Assistance of Hospital Patients) for manual patient handling tasks, which is being used as the basis for this study. The purpose of this research is to apply the MAPO Index to different hospital wards in state hospitals, in order to determine risk exposure level of musculoskeletal injuries suffered by caregivers. The study was conducted in the following hospital wards: internal medicine, general surgery, orthopedics and cardiology, on a total of 101 workers including nurses, auxiliary nurses and hospital orderlies. The MAPO Index analyzed organizational design issues, such as the number of caregivers, training, working shifts, type of patient and type of handling. It was also necessary to carry out an on-site inspection to collect information about aid equipment and the environment where patients are handled. The risk assessment of these wards shows additional training and information must be provided to the staff, bathroom space and other facilities are inadequate, and aids need improvement.