Authors (including presenting author) :
Lam CH(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Medicine & Geriatrics ,Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital
Introduction :
Manual handling operation (MHO) has been found as one of the main causes of Injury on duty and sick leave in Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital (OLMH). Among different groups of healthcare workers, there are 87.5% of HCA and PCA suffering from a different kind of degree of low back pain in the OLMH N2 ward. Therefore, it is crucial to promote occupational safety and health (OSH) by implementing the stretching exercise in the ward in order to reduce the incidents of low back pain. A stretching exercise prior to work and MHO education talk is effective in reducing MHO related low back pain. According to studies, pre-work stretching exercise and MHO education talk are effective in lowering the pain score among healthcare workers (Chen et al. 2014; Devi et al. 2014). A 5 minutes pre-work stretching exercise was introduced in the OLMH N2 ward to relieve low back pain and promote occupational safety.
Objectives :
(1) To lower the low back pain level among HCA and PCA; (2) To promote occupational safety and health (OSH) among the ward staff.
Methodology :
A pilot study of 5 minutes pre-work stretching exercise in reducing low back pain was launched in medicine & geriatric ward N2 in OLMH started from July 2020. All the HCA/PCA were invited to join in the program. The participants followed the movements of stretching exercise by watching the video made by the Occupational Safety and Health Council. The visual analog scale for pain was used to assess the low back pain level among HCA/PCA at the beginning of the program and ask whether they had performed stretching exercises before work. The same scale was used to assess their pain level again after 8 weeks of implementing the 5 minutes pre-work stretching exercise, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of 5 minutes pre-work stretching exercise in reducing low back pain.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 7 HCA/PCA staff participated in this program. All the participants claimed did not do stretching exercise before work. After the program, all of them expressed satisfaction with the program and the response rate was 100 %. They claimed that the duration (5 minutes) of the stretching exercise was appropriate. According to the results, this program had significantly lowered pain scores after 8 weeks program among HCA/PCA. The average low back pain score was reduced from 5.71 to 4.29 (p< 0.001, paired t-test) after the intervention among the participants. Therefore, the 5 minutes pre-work stretching exercise effectively reduces the low back pain among HCA/PCA staff. This study only focuses on the low back pain score among HCA/PCA staff, which is the limitation of the study. Further study should be carried out to investigate whether the pre-work stretching exercise could reduce the MHO related injury on duty (IOD) and sick leave rates.
