Introduction: Musculoskeletal Disorders are injuries and disorders that affect the human body's movement or musculoskeletal system. Symptoms of Musculoskletal disorders can include reccutent pain, stiff joints, swelling, dull aches and muscle weakness. The primary task of paramedics is to provide prehospital emergency care while ensuring safe transportation of the patient to a hospital. Paramedic's work often requires work in unhealthy or unphysiologic postures that include various physical tasks. The risk of work-related injuries among paramedics can be lowered by maintaining healthy posture while lifting and transfering patients. Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to focus on the problem of work-related musculo-skeletal injuries among the paramedics, working in emergency care due to lifting. The goals of the thesis are to assess paramedic's knowledge of proper lifting technique, the frequency of musculo-skeletal pain due to improper lifting technique among the paramedics, and the frequency of absence from work because of musculo-skeletal injuries due to improper lifting technique among the paramedics. Methods of work: We used descriptive method that included studying the existing literature and a questionnaire. The sample included 65 paramedics of Rescue station of the University Medical Centre Ljubljana, who completed the questionnaires between April and September 2019. Results: The paramedics state that they maintain correct posture during the studied tasks. At the same time, the musculo-skeletal injuries which they believe are a consequence of work-related tasks are frequent, although the participants are relatively young and haven't been doing the job for a long time. Injuries are most fruquenlty located in the lower back region, repetitive lower back injuries are also the most frequent reason of sick leave. They believe the most common reason for the injuries is incorrect lifting technique of stretcher, lateral transfer of a patient from a stretcher to a bed and moving stretcher toward ambulance. Discussion and conclusion: Our study shows that incompletely healed pain and injuries are very frequent among the paramedics. An observational study could help to gain further insight into the field. This was the posture and lifting technique of the paramedics during work-related tasks could be examined more objectively. To reduce the frequency of work-ralted musculo-skeletal injuries among the paramedics we suggest implementing lectures and workshops about correct posture and lifting techniques and corrective training.
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