P-259 Work-related biomechanical exposure among nurses: Semi-quantitative ergonomic risk assessment

IntroductionCare activities associated biomechanical constraints induce musculoskeletal disorders with heavy consequences, notably for exposed nurses.ObjectivesThis study aimed to assess biomechanical exposure among nurses in 28 patient hospitalization services.MethodsConcerned services were classified according to the nurses’ usual physical workload in ‘light’, ‘moderate’, ‘important’ and ‘high’ physical demanding group. A specific software was used to encode nurse activity observations. Indeed, at regular intervals of 15 seconds, each relevant biomechanical parameter of work situation is observed and instantly associated to a physical load score. The ‘patient handling score’ integrates both the adopted posture and the patient caracteristics . In order to estimate the overall physical arduousness, the software calculates a global score and distributes it according to the Chamoux scale.ResultsMost constraining postures were adopted during significantly longer periods in ‘heavy’ services. ‘Standing with leaning or twisted back’ was observed during 22.99% of working time in ‘high physical demanding service’, during 19.23% in ‘important physical demanding services’, during 15.60% and 15.33% in ‘moderate’ and ‘light’ demanding ones. The fraction of time spent with ‘Arms raised over the shoulders’ decreased from 2.14% in heavy demanding services to 1.44 in moderate ones. In total, patient handling activity took 0.71% of working time. Moreover, ‘High physical demanding service’ were significantly concerned by largest fraction of handling time (1.77%), by lower degree of autonomy of handled patients (1.51% of total working time), and by handling patients having weight exceeding 65 kg (1.57% of total working time). According to the Chamoux scale, global physical activity was classified rather heavy in all services groups, with an average score significantly increasing from 7.25 to 7.76 from’ light’ to ‘high’ physical demanding services (Anova=0.039) .ConclusionOur investigation objectified variable levels of biomechanical constraints in hospital services. Ergonomic and organizational preventing measures should be set up to prevent serious consequences among caregivers, in particular those affected to heavy services.