Prevalence of occupational low back pain and its association with job duration and working hours among nurses working in hospitals of Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence of occupational low back pain and its association with job duration and working hours among nurses working in Mayo hospital, Jinnah hospital, Services hospital and Lady Willingdon hospital of Lahore, Pakistan. Methodology: This cross sectional investigation was carried out from April to August 2017. The extended Nordic musculoskeletal survey was utilized to gather the information from a convenience sample of 254 female nurses. The questionnaires were equally distributed among female nurses with age of 25 to 55 years who were working for least five hours daily in Mayo hospital, Jinnah hospital, Services hospital and lady Willingdon hospital, Lahore Pakistan. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 21. Results: The mean age of subjects was 36.93±7.783 years (range 25-55). Out of 254 nurses, 170(66.9%) were married while 84 (33.1%) were single. 107(42.1%) had been working for more than 10 years, 140(55.1%) worked for 7-8 hours and 185(72.8%) had low back pain. There was an association between duration of job and low back pain (p=0.017) and between daily working hours and pain intensity (p=0.048). Conclusion: Low back pain is a major and common musculoskeletal issue in female nursing population. Work load parameters such as duration of job and daily working hours closely related to develop the low back ache in female nurses.