Abstract
This study applied Social Network Analysis (SNA) to test whether advice-seeking interactions among peers about safe patient handling correlate with a higher frequency of equipment use. Patient-care workers (n=38) at a community hospital in Oregon nominated peers they would consult for advice regarding safe patient handling. Results show a positive correlation between identifying more peers for safe patient handling advice and using equipment more frequently. Moreover, nurses with more reciprocal advice seeking nominations used safe patient handling equipment more frequently. However, employees who would be more consulted about safe patient handling by their peers did not use equipment more frequently than nurses with fewer nominations. Despite the small sample size, the magnitude of the adjusted regressions coefficients ranged between 3 to 4 standard deviations. These results suggest that having more or reciprocal sources of peer-based support may trigger ergonomic related behaviors such as frequent utilization of equipment.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 132-137 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Applied Ergonomics |
Volume | 68 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2018 |
Keywords
- Peer support
- Safe patient handling
- Safety behaviors
- Social Network Analysis
- Social support
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Human Factors and Ergonomics
- Physical Therapy, Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation
- Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
- Engineering (miscellaneous)