Work-Related Low Back Pain Among Hotel Housekeeping Workers At Kuala Lumpur

This study aims to identify and analyze the potential hazard and risk that causes low-back pain while cleaning the room and public area of the hotel using risk assessment. The Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Control (HIRARC) were used in this study to determine potential hazard and risk that causes low-back pain while cleaning the room and public area of the hotel. In identifying the hazard, observation at the workplace, semi-structured interviews, and data from Human Resources Department were used. Five awkward postures from HIRARC using Rapid Upper-Limb Assessment (RULA) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) methods with eighty housekeeping workers working in the respective area used as an input in risk assessment. The result shows that The most critical hazard was making/turning beds and transportation of beds activities where the highest risk can be explained (RV = 9). The risk to lower back and sprain, for example, the results of improper technique for manual handling and the medium-risk category (RV=6) is from mopping the wet floor and laundry activities, struck by the chemical containers that may cause external body injury (i.e., a sprain, torn ligaments or muscles, and broken bones). The low-risk category (RV=3) is collecting/ picking up sharp objects, which can cause back and upper limb pain due to repetition of work. The workers may feel discomfort and body aches. The worker was violent to staff also in the lowest risk category (RV=1). RULA assessment result states that all working postures (100%) have a high-risk level. Assessment of worker's posture is done by filling in the REBA assessment sheet for each activity. In the high-level cleaning activity, the neck is bent, given a score of 5. The upper arm is raised higher than the head, given a score of 4. The neck on the Mopping Wet Floor activity bends down, given a score of 2. REBA scores on were high-level cleaning, making/turning beds/mattresses, mopping the wet floor, transportation of beds, and toilet scrubbing cleaning activities were 13, 11, 12, 11, and 10 means that the posture of the worker's work has high risk to the musculoskeletal disorder.