Zeitschrift für Ergonomie
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AHP Based Ergonomic Evaluation of Hospital Bed Design: A Case Study in Bangladesh

SM Ahmed, CL Karmaker, PK Halder

Hospital bed is one of the most significant and frequently used healthcare furniture for patients. Most of the hospital beds of the government hospitals in a developing country like Bangladesh lack proper ergonomic considerations. This research aims to assess the design of existing government hospital bed in the context of Bangladesh with respect to different ergonomic problems and anthropometric parameters. Anthropometric measurements and ergonomic data were collected from 230 male patients and 154 female patients of 6 public hospitals of Bangladesh. Dimensions of the hospital bed for patients were collected from different wards of the hospital. Independent t-test was used to analyze the relationship between the anthropometric parameters and bed dimensions. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to assess the significance of anthropometric parameters with respect to different ergonomic problems. The findings of this research are as follows: (i) common ergonomic problems among the patients are poor blood circulation, fatigue, back pain, ligament strain and muscle/tendon strain, (ii) anthropometric parameters related to these ergonomic problems and bed dimensions are: stature, elbow height, popliteal height and sitting elbow height, (iii) among these five ergonomic problems, muscle/tendon strain affects significantly and (iv) stature is the most significant anthropometric parameter for hospital bed design. A predictive model of bed dimension has been developed using a linear regression method. Finally, a new design of the hospital bed is proposed considering all the related anthropometric Parameters.