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

To examine whether the prevalence of low back pain (LBP) increased in hospital nurses with high patient care workload.

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.

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).

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.