Manual handling activities and risk of low back pain in nurses.

Abstract

Objective-To investigate the risk factors for low back pain in hospital nurses, with particular emphasis on the role of specific nursing activities. Methods-A cross sectional survey of 2405 nurses employed by a group of teaching hospitals was carried out. Self administered questionnaires were used to collect information about occupational activities, non-occupational risk factors for back symptoms, and history of low back pain. Results-The overall response rate was 69%. Among 1616 women, the lifetime prevalence of back pain was 60% and the one year period prevalence 45%. 10% had been absent from work because of back pain for a cumulative period exceeding four weeks. Rates in men were generally similar to those in women. In women back pain during the previous 12 months was weakly associated with height, and was significantly more common in those who reported frequent non-musculoskeletal symptoms such as headache and low mood. After adjustment for height and non-musculoskeletal symptoms, significant associations were found with frequency of manually moving patients around on the bed, manually transferring patients between bed and chair, and manually lifting patients from the floor. In contrast, no clear increase in risk was found in relation to transfer of patients with canvas and poles, manually lifting patients in and out of the bath, or lifting patients with mechanical aids. Confirmation of these findings is now being sought in a prospective study of the same population.Conclusions-This study confirms that low back pain is highly prevalent among nurses and is associated with a high level of sickness absence. People who often report non-musculoskeletal symptoms were significantly more likely to report low back pain. Specific manual handling tasks were associated with an increased risk of back pain; however, no such association was found with mechanised patient transfers. Each member of the study population was sent a postal questionnaire asking about various non-occupational risk factors for back complaints including age, height, reproductive history, and smoking habits; about frequency of certain non-musculoskeletal symptoms; about details of his or her current job, and about lifetime and recent history of low back pain. Non-responders were sent a single reminder after a month.The questions about non-musculoskeletal symptoms aimed to investigate whether psychological factors that influence reporting of other symptoms (particularly pain and psychological ill health) also affect the risk of reported low back pain. Subjects were asked to indicate how often (never, occasionally, or frequently) they experienced headaches, period pains, constant tiredness, low mood, and feeling tense or under stress.Occupational details included a self reported estimate of the number of times the subject performed each of a series of specified patient handling tasks per average shift (for full list of patient handling tasks see table 4).Low back pain was defined as pain lasting for longer than a day in an area (indicated in a...

Clinicians’ views on factors that trigger a sudden onset of low back pain

“…These factors can be aggregated into a smaller number of categories [9] including biomechanical factors (regular lifting, exposure to vibration, physically demanding jobs, bending and twisting, pushing and pulling heavy loads, awkward posture) [2,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], psychological/psychosocial factors (job satisfaction, local support in the workplace, depression, job control, stress) [2,7,9,16,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and individual risk factors (sedentary lifestyle, age, smoking, gender, obesity, poor general health, marital status, pregnancy) [2,7,9,12,13,20,21,23,[26][27][28][29][30][31]. Past studies have investigated many of these factors and their relationship to LBP.…”

An ergonomic evaluation of tasks of healthcare unit personnel in different shifts in General Hospitals in West Bengal

“…Nurses' work motivation has proven to be an important factor for their intent to work [38] and job satisfaction [39]. Detection of the factors that increase and decrease the motivation levels of shifts were longer than twelve hours, so the nurses on night shifts can make considerable mistakes while performing their duties in hospitals [26].…”

Effects of educational intervention on joint angles of the trunk and lower extremity and on muscle activities during patient-handling tasks

“…There are numerous reports [7,[16][17][18][19][20][21] on the effect of educational interventions for preventing lumbago among health care practitioners carrying out patient-handling tasks. However, little information is available on the effect of educational intervention for physical therapists.…”

“…Several researchers have pointed out the significance of patient-handling tasks, such as transferring patients, as the cause of lumbago [2,[10][11][12][13][14][15], and a large number of reports on the effect of educational intervention on the prevention of lumbago resulting from patient-handling tasks among nurses and nursing students have been published. Yassi et al [7] reported that physical load to low back during patient-handling task was reduced by technical and concentrated training as well as by introducing the appropriate supporting equipment for the task [16]. The effectiveness of educational intervention for lumbago prevention among nurses working in hospitals has also been reported [17][18][19].…”

“…Johnsson et al [20] observed positive effects of educational intervention on work technique scores and ratings of comfort, safety and exertion among nursing students. Smedley et al [16] reported that the use of supportive equipment when carrying out patienthandling tasks reduced the risk of low back pain relative to those carried out by manual handling. In contrast, there are some negative reports regarding the effect of educational intervention.…”