Associations of self estimated workloads with musculoskeletal symptoms among hospital nurses

Abstract

Objectives-To investigate the prevalence of neck, shoulder, and arm pain (NSAP) as well as low back pain (LBP) among hospital nurses, and to examine the association of work tasks and self estimated risk factors with NSAP and LBP. Methods-A cross sectional study was carried out in a national university hospital in Japan. Full time registered nurses in the wards (n=314) were selected for analysis. The questionnaire was composed of items on demographic conditions, severity of workloads in actual tasks, self estimated risk factors for fatigue, and musculoskeletal pain in the previous month. Rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated by the Cox's proportional hazards model to study the association of pain with variables related to work and demographic conditions. Results-The prevalences of low back, shoulder, neck, and arm pain in the previous month were 54.7%, 42.8%, 31.3%, and 18.6%, respectively. The prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms among hospital nurses was higher than in previous studies. In the Cox's models for LBP and NSAP, there were no significant associations between musculoskeletal pain and the items related to work and demographic conditions. The RRs for LBP tended to be relatively higher for "accepting emergency patients" and some actual tasks. Some items of self estimated risk factors for fatigue tended to have relatively higher RRs for LBP and NSAP. Conclusions-It was suggested that musculoskeletal pain among hospital nurses may have associations with some actual tasks and items related to work postures, work control, and work organisation. Further studies, however, are necessary, as clear evidence of this potential association was not shown in the study.

Does safety climate moderate the influence of staffing adequacy and work conditions on nurse injuries?

“…Nurses in these settings, therefore, may experience heavier work demands due to higher patient acuity and greater work complexity, thus increasing the risk of injury (Ando et al, 2000;Menzel, Brooks, Bernard, & Nelson, 2004;Trinkoff, Lipscomb, Geiger-Brown, Storr, & Brady, 2003). While it is reasonable to assume that, like teaching hospitals, the risk of injury is higher for nurses in hospitals that offer more high technology services, no studies have described the effect of technological complexity on work-related injuries among nurses.…”

“…Higher patient acuity and greater work complexity have been linked to increased work-related injuries among nurses (Ando et al, 2000;Geiger-Brown et al, 2004;Lundstrom et al, 2002). Nurses are more likely to encounter time-sensitive situations that require immediate action when patient acuity is high.…”

Distúrbios musculo-esqueléticos em trabalhadores de enfermagem: associação com condições de trabalho

“…Esse problema acomete trabalhadores em países Rev Bras Enferm, Brasília 2007 nov-dez; 60(6): 701-5. desenvolvidos e também em subdesenvolvidos, levando-os a diferentes graus de incapacidade funcional. Em todo o mundo, esse distúrbio gera aumento de absenteísmo e de afastamentos temporários ou permanentes do trabalhador e também produz custos expressivos em tratamento e indenizações (1,(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8) .…”

“…Pesquisas realizadas em vários países, exibem prevalências superiores a 80% de ocorrência de distúrbios musculoesqueléticos em trabalhadores de enfermagem (5,6,8,12,13) . Estudos brasileiros mostram prevalências entre 43 a 93% desses distúrbios (10,14,15) .…”

Personal service assistance: Musculoskeletal disorders and injuries in consumer‐directed home care

“…Similarly, Kim and colleagues found a modest increase in risk (OR=1.14; CI=1.08-1.19) for physical demands among PAS providers (Kim et al, 2010). Other studies of care providers have also found challenges in identifying the role of physical risk factors in WRMSDs or related disability (Ando et al, 2000;Simon et al, 2008), or determining the most problematic physical risk factor in home care (Cheung et al, 2006;Ono et al, 1995). Most of these studies, like ours, were self report surveys, and lacked validation from medical or disability records, which may lead to misclassification of cases or imprecision of the models.…”