Iran Occupational Health

Background and aims: Patient handling tasks are the major causes of musculoskeletal disorders, such as low back pain, among nursing staff. MAPO technique is a quantitative method of ergonomic evaluation that provides risk level of musculoskeletal disorders due to patient transfer in hospital wards by calculating MAPO index. The objective of the present study was to conduct an ergonomic evaluation of governmental hospitals in Qazvin city using MAPO method.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 43 wards in 6 governmental hospitals in Qazvin city. Data were collected using the MAPO index checklist during an interview with the head nurse and on-site inspection of wards. Statistical analysis was performed using spss version 16.

Results: Evaluation of hospitals by MAPO method revealed that 21% of hospital wards were at risk level 1, 46.5% at risk level 2 and 32.5% at risk level 3. The results indicated that there was not a significant difference between mean of MAPO Index values in studied hospitals (p = 0.0301) but there was a significant difference between mean of MAPO index values at types of wards investigated (p= 0.014). Among all studied wards, orthopedic had highest risk and NICU had lowest risk.  

Conclusion: The effective factors on MAPO risk in hospital wards could be the absent, inadequate or insufficient of patient lifting devices, minor aids, wheelchair, structural features of environment (bathroom, toilet, patient room), and training of nurses according to patients handling number of nurses with regards to disable patients.