Knowledge and Self-Reported Practice Regarding Mobility Safety Measures of Patients among Employees

The falls suffered by the patients during their hospitalization are one of the most important occurrence in the breakdown of security and often responsible for an increased number of hospital days and worse recovery conditions. The aim of the study were to assess the knowledge regarding mobility safety measures of patients with spinal cord injury among patient mobility services (PMS) employees and identify the self reported practice of body mechanism of the employees.

Quantitative approach with non experimental survey design was used. The study was conducted among 60 patient mobility service department employee in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi (AIMS) sampling technique used was convenience sampling. A knowledge questionnaire regarding mobility measures in spinal cord injury patients and a self-reported questionnaire was distributed to 60 patient mobility employee to identify the physical activity levels, personal characteristics, and associated work factors.

The participants age were between 17–25 years, majority(51.7%) of them were males. Most of the employees 26.7% had poor knowledge, 55% had average knowledge and 18.3% had good knowledge.50% of the employee had good practice skill, 31.7% had excellent practice skill 10% had average skill and 8.3% had poor skill.31.7% employee did not have and 41(68.3%) employee had experience in shifting patients’ with spinal cord injury. There was significant association between area of work and safety mobility measures using (χ² = 0.045, (p=0.05)) and there was also highly significant association between previous exposure of information and body mechanics χ² = 0.001(p=0.001).

Overall results provide relevant feedback of the knowledge and the self-reported practice of the employee which throws light on the importance of reducing and possibly minimizing threats as well as extend safe patient handling.