Increased low back pain risk in nurses with high workload for patient care: A questionnaire survey

Abstract

Objective: To examine whether the prevalence of low back pain (LBP) increased in hospital nurses with high patient care workload. Materials and Methods: A structured, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information on the prevalence of LBP and its associated factors from 788 registered nurses from a medical center in Taiwan. Results: Among all nurses with eligible questionnaires, 567 (72.0%) had LBP. Mean daily hours of working, standing, and walking were persistently longer in the LBP group. Results from multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that daily working for 1 hour longer is linked to a 35% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 2–78%) greater risk of LBP. Compared with <2 years of service as nurse, nurses with 2–5 years of service had the highest risk (odds ratio (OR) = 2.11, 95% CI = 1.07–4.18). LBP risk was also higher for nurses with chore duty responsibilities (OR = 1.99, 95% CI = 1.12–3.53) and other back related disorders (OR = 4.43, 95% CI = 1.99–9.86). Conclusion: Our results suggest that longer daily working hours and a large number of cared patients per shift should be discouraged in order to prevent musculoskeletal problems such as LBP in registered nurses.

Keywords

• job stress
• low back pain
• nurses
• occupational health
• prolonged work shift