Skip Navigation
Sonja Freitag1,*, Isabell Fincke-Junod1, Rachida Seddouki2, Madeleine Dulon1, Ingo Hermanns3, Jan Felix Kersten4, Tore J. Larsson5 and Albert Nienhaus2
1Institution for Statutory Accident Insurance and Prevention in the Health and Welfare Services, (BGW), Department for the Principle of Prevention and Rehabilitation, Pappelallee 33/35/37, 22089 Hamburg, Germany
2Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing, UKE—University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
3Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA), Department 4: Physical Effects of Work Organisation, Alte Heerstraße 111, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany
4Department of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology, UKE—University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
5Centre for Health and Building, KTH—Royal Institute of Technology, Marinens väg 30, 136 40 Haninge, Sweden ?* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +49-4020-207-3233; fax: +49-4020-207-3298; e-mail: sonja.freitag{at}bgw-online.de Received June 21, 2011. Accepted January 14, 2012. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to quantify the total duration per shift in which nurses work in a forward bending position over 20°. Furthermore, the influence of several factors on the occurrence of sagittal trunk inclinations in nurses was investigated.
Methods: Trunk postures were recorded for nine nursing home nurses from four German nursing homes and 18 hospital nurses from seven hospitals using the CUELA measurement system. A total of 79 shifts, 27 in nursing homes and 52 in hospitals, were analysed. All measurements were supported by video recordings. Specially developed software (WIDAAN 2.75) was used to synchronize the measurement data and video footage.
Results: The total duration of inclinations per shift was significantly affected by the working area (nursing home or hospital) with an increase of 25.3 min in nursing homes (95% confidence interval 2.4–48.2; P = 0.032). Another factor was the extent of personal basic care tasks performed by the nurses (P < 0.001). Nursing home nurses worked about twice as long per shift in a forward bending position compared with hospital nurses (112 versus 63 min; P < 0.001) and they assumed almost one-third more inclinations per shift (1541 versus 1170; P = 0.005).
Conclusions: Nursing staff perform a large number of inclinations. The amount of time spent by nurses working in a forward bending position was highly dependent on the working area and the extent to which patients were in need of help. It is very likely that future preventive measures, focussing on reducing the huge amount of inclination, would reduce the physical stress in everyday nursing work substantially. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society]. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This Article
Ann Occup Hyg (2012) 56 (6): 697-707. doi: 10.1093/annhyg/mes002 First published online: February 22, 2012 Current Issue
Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.
View the original article here
5:44 AM
admin
Posted in: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment