Ergonomics Hazards and Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Workers of Health Care Facilities
Almas Hamid1
*
, Alizae Salaam Ahmad1
, Sarah Dar 1
, Sana Sohail 1
, Faiza Akram 1
and Mariya Irfan Qureshi1
http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CWE.13.2.10
The present study is conducted to determine occupational health and safety hazards with special focus on ergonomic hazards among healthcare facility (HCF) workers. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted among 200 workers in five HCFs of Lahore, Pakistan. Among the reported ergonomic hazards, muscle aches/ sprains (76.5%), elbow/ wrist/ neck pain (56.0%), body posture issues (56.0%), excessive stretching of muscles (67.5%) and bending/ twisting at work (55.5%) were commonly encountered. Biological hazards included incidences of cuts/wounds/ lacerations (69.0%), contact with specimens (56.0%), exposure of airborne diseases (64.0%) and other infections (72.0%) inspite of the fact that majority (90.0%) were aware of procedures where needle stick injuries are most likely to occur and knowledgeable on occupational infections. Physical hazards included slips/trips/falls (65.0%), high noise levels (64.0%) and chemical spills (54.0%). A significant percentage of workers experienced psychosocial hazards including work related stress (77.0%) and some form of psychosocial or physical abuse (68.5%). Despite workers awareness about occupational health hazards and implementation of control measures by HCF to mitigate hazards (especially biological) prevalence of hazards was reported. Hence, there is a need to improve working standards and conditions to reduce the occurrence of ergonomic and psychosocial hazards.
Copy the following to cite this article:
Hamid A, Ahmad A. S, Dar S, Sohail S, Akram F, Qureshi M. I. Ergonomics Hazards and Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Workers of Health Care Facilities. Curr World Environ 2018;13(2). DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.12944/CWE.13.2.10
Copy the following to cite this URL:
Hamid A, Ahmad A. S, Dar S, Sohail S, Akram F, Qureshi M. I. Ergonomics Hazards and Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Workers of Health Care Facilities. Curr World Environ 2018;13(2). Available from: http://www.cwejournal.org?p=1078/
