A pilot study on awareness of ergonomics and prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries among nursing professionals

Nurses play a major role in patient care and handling in various health care work environments. The physical work load and psychological stress factors affects the performance of nursing professionals.

To find out the awareness on ergonomics and safety measures at work place among Indian Nursing professionals and to study the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries among them.

Cross sectional observational pilot study with the help of pre validated questionnaire to collect the information from 34 Nursing professionals working in a hospital at Navi Mumbai. The questionnaire included items to collect demographic data, awareness on ergonomics and safety measures practiced by them. Standardized Nordic Questionnaire was used for the detection of musculoskeletal symptoms among them. Based on the data collected from the questionnaire, the analysis was done.

Results: 53% of the nurses were not aware about ergonomics and safety measures. 75% of them were not following ergonomics. Based on the Standardized Nordic questionnaire, 53% of the nurses had musculoskeletal complaints. 30% of them had pain on lower back. 43% of them were prevented from their work due to the musculoskeletal aches. The musculoskeletal troubles increased with increase in years of experience in Chi-square test value 12.147 (p-value<0.05). The analysis showed no correlation between awareness on ergonomics and musculoskeletal complaints among nurses with Chi-square value 3.032 (p-value<0.05).

The awareness on ergonomics and safety measures among these nurses found to be less. The improper lifting and patient handling techniques could have lead to musculoskeletal aches among them. As years of experience advances the incidence of aches and pains also found to be increased.

Implications: The physical performance of nurses can be improved by giving proper awareness and training on ergonomics, safety measures and patient lifting and transferring techniques. This need to be stressed in the nursing curriculum.