AN EVALUATION OF MANUTENTION TRAINING IN PREVENTING BACK STRAIN AND RESULTANT INJURIES IN NURSES

As the number of manual handling injuries in carers and nurses continu es to be very high, the problem of how to prevent injury has not been solved. Despite the obvious need for optimum working environments, the literature does not really support that an ergonomics or systems appr oach solves the injury problem. Similarly, the evidence for training a s a preventive strategy is equivocal, although clearly people handling requires trained handlers for both their own and the patient's safety . This research aimed to evaluate the outcomes of training in a method of manual handling of people, Dotte's Manutention method, which claim s to decrease back strain and effort in carers. The study evaluated ha ndling techniques and injury outcomes of a group of nurses in a nursin g home trained in this method, using two other homes as comparisons. T he study hypothesized that training in the Manutention method would de crease back strain and resultant back injuries in nurses working in ge riatric care. The results showed a clear pattern of declining incidenc e of nurses' back pain for the nurses trained in Manutention and incre asing incidence in the other two homes. These findings approached sign ificance with a probability of < 0.1. Of those respondents who indicat ed a decrease in pain during the twelve month research period, all att ributed it to their training. Ninety four percent of respondents who r eceived training agreed it made their manual handling job easier. The observation method used was not sensitive enough to evaluate the multi ple movements involved in a patient transfer. A supplementary controll ed study was performed using videotaping and the Ovako Working Assessm ent System (OWAS). Manutention lifts were rated significantly better t han non-Manutention on the critical variable of working posture (p < 0 .01) and observed effort (p < 0.05). Accident statistics on patient ha ndling did not show decreased injury rates at twelve months. The diffi culties of controlling variables in the workplace and of the measureme nt of complex handling tasks were limitations of this study. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.