Musculoskeletal Disorders in Operating Room: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Aim: The present study sought to understand the semantics of surgical technologists about the causes and factors inducing musculoskeletal disorders in operating room medical staff. Background: The physical health of operating room technologists, affecting the health of patients, causes mental health problems and reduces occupational performance. Methods: A qualitative and phenomenological study was conducted. The statistical population included all surgical technologists of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, from which 10 individuals were selected by non-probability and snowball sampling methods, and in-depth interviews were carried out for them. Results: In data analysis, the primary code was extracted in the form of 14 sub-themes and 5 main categories, including management factors, facilities, manpower status, destructive factors of the work field, and miscellaneous factors. Conclusion: The operating room medical staff considers muscular discomfort and pain in the head, neck, wrist, back, and legs as skeletal disorder, and they believe that factors such as managerial measures, poor equipment and lack of facilities, manpower status, destructive factors of intensive, long, and repetitive work fields, and some miscellaneous factors are effective in their occurrence. Relevance to clinical practice: As the medical staff are faced with physical, mental, and psychological pressures due to the difficulty of work, lack of facilities, attitudes of supervisors and managers as well as colleagues, this research can be effective and useful in order to introduce more of these dimensions to the relevant authorities.