Lower back pain among nurses. An Occupational Study on Nurses in selected hospitals of Kathmandu, Nepal

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Health - Public Health, grade: MPH, State University of Bangladesh (State University of Bangladesh), course: Public Health, language: English, abstract: Nursing is considered as a caring as well as a challenging profession as nurses have to cope with many diverse situations from simple to complex work. This increasing competition and work demand puts pressure on nurses physically and psychologically along with a high risk for an occupational health problem. Low back pain (LBP) is the most common. Thus, this study aimed to find out the status & factors affecting LBP among nurses. A descriptive cross sectional study with verbal informed consent among 300 registered nurses by using simple random sampling was conducted. Semi structured questionnaires with Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) to measure the severity of pain and Measure of Job Satisfaction (MJS), a likert scale to measure job satisfaction for psychological factors were used. The Chi square test was used to see the association. Significant association was found between long service duration, prolonged working hours, incorrect posture, performing activity of nursing care and prolonged standing. It is recommended to take appropriate measures to reduce long working hours, follow correct body mechanics, promote job satisfaction and to maintain standard nurse patient ratio to reduce work load to nurses in hospital settings.