Comparison between five risk assessment methods of patient handling

• We compare five risk assessment methods, qualifying each one based on ten items.
• Some risk assessment methods are similar in nature, but have a different measurement approach.
• MAPO, PTAI and Care Thermometer are more balanced than DINO and Dortmund Approach.
• Risk assessment can be improved, as they exhibit some degree of incompleteness.
• We propose the basic guidelines of a new method that integrates the top rated factors.

Several methods currently exist to assess risks resulting from manual handling of patients, based on various perspectives and analyzing different working conditions in the health-care sector. For that reason, a comparison of the main tools properties is discussed in the current study, establishing their strengths and weaknesses in order to provide guidance for the selection of a potential ideal method to use. The comparison is done based on ten items selected from MAPO, DINO, PTAI, Care Thermometer and Dortmund Approach methods, by qualifying each one with different scores, according to a predetermined criterion. For this purpose, a previous fieldwork was performed in various hospital wards and operating rooms of a public health service hospital, comparing the results of partial and total scores. It was observed that, although the five methods compared are similar in nature, the methodology of each them is different and, therefore, the results obtained are unequal. On one hand, it was found that MAPO, PTAI and Care Thermometer methods provide a more balanced approach on the different variables that, in a preventive level, influence the patient handling. On the other hand, it was evidenced that DINO and Dortmund Approach methods focus almost exclusively on the technical work of the caregiver and on the detailed postural analysis that determines the lumbar load, respectively. As a conclusion, we believe that it is necessary to advance with the improvement of these tools, and in this sense we propose the basic lines of a method that integrates those factors that were top rated.