• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제24권2호
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• pp.17-24
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• 2005

The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders(MSDs) among nursing personnels. A self-reporting survey adapted from Nordic questionnaires was used as diagnostic tool, and conducted for 162 nurses working for a general hospital. The survey was performed five times every three months during a year. The MSDs were defined by using three criteria, depending upon the frequency, duration and pain intensity of the symptoms. The results showed that the 12-month prevalences of MSDs at any body site by criterion 1, 2, 3 were 56.8%, 53.7%, 45.7%, respectively, and that the shoulder was the most susceptible to MSDs, followed by knee/lower leg, lower back, hand/wrist, neck, ankle/feet, finger, etc. Only one statistically significant risk factor of departments or units was identified through the Chi-square test. The prevalence of MSDs was the highest in intensive care unit, second in surgical ward, while the prevalence was the lowest in emergency room. The MSDs prevalence of Korea at any body part or by body part was much lower than that of foreign countries such as Japan, USA, Sweden, etc. This implies that when considering poor working conditions and load in Korea, the incidence rate of MSDs may rapidly increase in Korea in the future.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.161-171
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• 2006

The objectives of this study were to ergonomically evaluate varying tasks performed in a general hospital and to propose their improving measures based on the evaluation results. The tasks found in the hospital were largely classified into two groups of manual materials handling and awkward posture related tasks. Ergonomic tools of NLE, 3-D SSPP and RULA were used for evaluating workload of the tasks. The major findings are: 1) L5/S1 compressive force of patient transferring by one person exceeded the maximum permissible limit(6,400N) by NIOSH. The L5/S1 compressive forces for most of the patient transferring tasks by 2-4 persons were larger than the action limit (3,400N), and the tasks by five persons were analyzed to be safe in the view of L5/S1 compressive force; 2) patient repositioning tasks by 2-3 persons were hazardous on the basis of L5/S1 compressive force, while most of the tasks by 4-5 persons were safe; 3) many tasks performed in wards were found to be stressful, most of which resulted from improper heights of their working tables or working points. Of varying tasks in general hospitals, patient transferring was the most stressful. Based on the results of this study and high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders from other studies, it is recommended that the ergonomics program be introduced and enforced for doing improving activities systematically