Ergonomic Risk-prone Activities toward Nurses in the Intensive Care and Emergency Room

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nurses have the risk of ergonomic hazards in providing nursing care, especially with increasingly dynamic health services such as during Coronavirus disease-19 pandemic like today. AIM: The aim of the study was to evaluate activities prone to produce ergonomic risks during the implementation of nursing care in intensive care and emergency room (ER) of a hospital in Riau, Indonesia. METHODOLOGY: This study was conducted by observing the routine activities conducted by the nurses and using similar task group techniques equipped with Rapid Entire Body Assessment instrument. Those observed activities were obtained from 17 intensive care room nurses and ten ER nurses. There were six activities observed in the intensive care room: Bathing, transferring the patient, wounds dressing, taking blood samples for the AGDA examinations, as well as inserting the intravenous needle and electrocardiograms. Meanwhile, there were two activities observed in the ER: Transferring the patient and inserting the intravenous needle. RESULTS: The highest ergonomic risks activity in the intensive care room was bathing the patient with a total score of 13. At the ER, the highest risk score was transferring the patient with a total score of 12. Both activities were at level 4, indicating a high-risk condition. Thus, examinations and changes should be immediately initiated. CONCLUSION: The results are significant to be paid attention by the related parties at the hospital to facilitate some improvements immediately. In addition, the ergonomic approaches that can be suggested to the nurses are regular stretching, physical exercises, and applying ergonomic principles while working.