Back Injuries among Nursing Personnel Related to Exposure

Abstract

This investigation was undertaken to examine the consistency of epidemiologic studies relating back pain among nursing personnel and exposure to frequent stressful patient handling. A comprehensive literature review resulted in the identification of six studies that included data on both patient handling frequency and back pain prevalence. Data from each study were extracted to provide comparable information for an exposure variable and a health outcome variable. Exposure was characterized as a two-category variable: less frequent and more frequent patient handling. The health outcome variable was prevalence of a back problem according to the definition used in the particular study. Despite differences in specific criteria for characterizing exposure and defining health outcome, all of the studies were consistent in finding larger prevalence rates among those nursing personnel who more frequently performed physically stressful patient handling. Overall, the prevalence rate of those who more frequently handled patients was about 3.7 times that of the nursing personnel who infrequently handled patients. The practical implication of these results is that industrial hygienists serving healthcare employees may find it useful to characterize exposure in terms of patient handling frequency and use this information to determine which groups of nursing staff should receive priority for back injury prevention efforts. Several ideas are offered for expanding the back injury prevention programs of hospitals and nursing homes.