Safety and sustainability of floor coverings in hospitals: a mixed method approach

It is essential that floor coverings should be adequately slip-proof to sustain the movement of pedestrians. Coverings that are slippery when dry and/or wet can form a safety risk and cause people walking on them to slip and fall. Therefore, it is essential to design safe floor coverings and maintain them in a way that complies with floor covering standards and ensure that existing coverings do not form a safety risk. Hospitals are public places where many people work or visit. To comply with applicable standards, floor coverings in hospitals should have sustainable slip resistant characteristics that ensure the safety of health professionals, patients and visitors. However, little research has been carried out in this area, surprising considering that slips and falls are the most reported work accidents in many countries. This study aimed to investigate slipperiness of hospital floors in Turkey and determine if they form a safety risk to pedestrians based on international standards. Coefficient of friction, which is an important floor covering surface finish characteristic, when dry and wet, at multiple departments/wards in three hospitals in Turkey were measured and statistically analysed using analysis of variance technique. The study also aimed to investigate potential hospital users’ opinions using a short questionnaire whose results were analysed using non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-test technique that did not assume normality of data. Results showed that floor coverings in hospitals form a safety risk to pedestrians when wet and that their topographic features do not comply with standards. Respondents to the questionnaire also indicated that hospital floors were slippery especially when wet and that those floor coverings should be made less slippery and safer. It was therefore concluded that topographic features of hospital floor coverings formed a risk to pedestrians and that a change in their surface design was needed to ensure their sustainable use and compliance with safety standards.