Work Ability among registered nurses in operating room

Introduction
Nurses, who are working in an operating room are considered to be the high risk workers. The major risk factors were the prolonged standing and material handling. The work ability is characterized by the balance between a worker's individual resources and demands of the work. The principal resources include health, capacity, competence and values. There was no evidence of work ability among nurses particularly who are working in the operating room. The study aims were to determine work ability of those nurses in a hospital and to describe the relationship among general characteristics, working characteristics, working posture, work environment, and nurses’ work ability.

Methods
A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. The operating room nurses from 5 units (n=112) completes questionnaires, which included a Thai Version of Work Ability questionnaires and a questionnaire of working condition and socio-demographic characteristics. The correlation among working characteristics, working posture, working environment, and working ability were determined by Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The Chi-Square was introduced to identify association among ages, working hours, working experience and working ability. Multiple Regression Analysis was used to determine correlation between working ability, individual characteristics and working characteristics.

Results
The results showed that most of the nurses had a good work ability (62.5%). The significantly associated factor for general characteristics with work ability was age (p<0.05). The ergonomic risk factors which covered working characteristics, working posture, physical working environment, and psychological factors were revealed to be significantly associated with work ability (p<0.05). The results showed the relationship between ergonomic and work ability after using stepwise multiple regression analysis.

Discussion
Age, working posture, working task, working physical environment, psychological factors affected the work ability. This finding suggested that the improvement of working conditions and psychological factors at the workplace is required to enhance their work ability.