Physiological Impact of Hospital Cleaning Carts on Cleaning Staff

Abstract

Cleaning is a physiologically taxing profession and many cleaners suffer from chronic injuries. One aspect of a professional cleaner’s duties is cleaning floors. Different methods exist for cleaning floors and cleaning carts may be specifically designed to cater to a particular method. The goal of this study was to investigate the physiological impact of the cleaning method and cart on six professional cleaners preparing to clean floors. Although this study only examined the user actions required to prepare different carts and mops for floor cleaning, results indicate that carts which use a correctly pre-wet microfiber mop head require less overall muscle effort to prepare the mop than do carts which either use braided mops or incorrectly wetted microfiber mop heads. When extrapolated to the effort required during an entire cleaning shift, some carts and their associated cleaning methods required uses to exert between 357% and 1005% more muscle effort than the best performing cart. Future research should be conducted to evaluate if these physiological effect trends also are present during the act of floor cleaning. Additionally, it is presently unknown if all methods of floor cleaning result in equivalent levels of floor cleaning efficacy.