Occupational Safety and Health Interventions to Reduce Musculoskeletal Symptoms in the Health Care Sector

Abstract

The findings here echo previous systematic reviews supporting exercise as providing positive health benefits and training alone as not being effective. Given the moderate level of evidence, exercise interventions and multi-component patient handling interventions (MCPHI) were recommended as practices to consider. A multi-component intervention includes a policy that defines an organizational commitment to reducing injuries associated with patient handling, purchase of appropriate lift or transfer equipment to reduce biomechanical hazards and a broad-based ergonomics training program that includes safe patient handling and/or equipment usage. The review demonstrates MCPHI can be evaluated if the term multi-component is clearly defined and consistently applied.

Assessing the Risk of Manual Handling of Patients and Its Relationship with the Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Nursing Staff: Performance Evaluation of the MAPO and PTAI Methods

“…Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) affect a significant proportion of the workforce and represent one of the main causes of work-related injuries among healthcare workers (1,2). Nursing, which comprises the most populous health care-related occupational group, has attracted more research attention concerning such disorders compared with other types of occupations relating to health care (3,4).…”

Patient transfers and assistive devices: prospective cohort study on the risk for occupational back injury among healthcare workers

“…In the US, healthcare workers injury rates equal or exceed rates in other industries that are traditionally considered hazardous (1). In Europe, the proportion of healthcare workers who consider their health and safety to be at risk due to their work is higher than the average across all sectors in the EU (2).…”

The “Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology” Journal Club Series: Highlights on Recent Papers in Musculoskeletal Disorders

“…According to a recent study by Van Eerd and coworkers [20], if no significant actions are undertaken by occupational health and safety practitioners, MSDs may become the leading cause of long absences from work and, even worse, cause permanent disabling effects. According to recent literature ( [21,22], several workplace interventions have been implemented so far. Unfortunately, only a few studies have demonstrated that such measures had sustainable and quantifiable positive effects on symptoms and disability outcomes, although none have shown negative effects.…”