Abstract
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.
Highlights
Healthcare is, directly or indirectly, associated with the provision of health facilities to individuals
The questionnaire forms were completed onsite with face to face communication with the respondents.Each questionnaire form took on an average about 10 minutes to complete.The questionnaire was adapted from US Center for Disease Control (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as well as hazards reported in literature[2,11,12]
Majority of the respondents faced a range of ergonomic hazards in which muscle aches/ muscle sprains (76.5%), elbow/ wrist/ neck pain (56.0%), problems of body posture (56.0%), excessive stretching of muscles (67.5%), bending/ twisting at work (55.5%) were the most reported
Summary
Healthcare is, directly or indirectly, associated with the provision of health facilities to individuals. The healthcare facilities (HCF) involve a broad range of workforce such as physicians, nurses, experts, clinical research/ laboratory personnel, social and administrative workers[1]. Health care services around the world employ over 59 million personnel who are daily exposed to a variety of health and safety hazards. Healthcare, an important sector of the U.S economy provides employment to over 8 million U.S healthcare workers (HCW), including pharmacy and nursing workers, physicians, operative room staffs, environmental facilities employees, personnel in CONTACT Almas Hamid.
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