Abstract
Home care workers are a priority population for ergonomic assessment and intervention, but research on caregivers' exposures to hazards is limited. The current project evaluated the reliability and validity of an ergonomic self-assessment tool called Home Care STAT (Safety Task Assessment Tool). Participants (N=23) completed a background survey followed by 10-14 days of self-monitoring with the STAT. Results showed that the most frequent task was house cleaning, and that participants regularly performed dangerous manual client moving and transferring tasks. Researcher in-home observations of 14 workers (duration ≤2h) demonstrated that workers' self-assessments were moderately reliable. Correlational and multi-level analyses of daily self-assessment data revealed that several task exposures were significantly related to daily fatigue and/or pain. Other associations have implications for Total Worker Health™ ; for example, daily stress was positively associated with both pain and consumption of high calorie snacks. Findings support the STAT as a reliable and potentially valid tool for measuring home care workers' exposures to physically demanding tasks.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1157-1166 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Applied Ergonomics |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2014 |
Keywords
- Hazard exposure
- Home care workers
- Self-assessment
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Human Factors and Ergonomics
- Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
- Engineering (miscellaneous)