Prevalence of MSDs among Nurses: A Study in Indian Health Care Industry

Abstract

Nursing is the largest, the most diverse, and one of the most respected of all the health care professions. The demand for nursing remains high, and projections suggest that such demand will substantively increase. Awkward posture, lifting, forceful movements and manual work at rapid rate contribute to musculoskeletal disorders in nurses. Currently, India is facing a shortage of more than million nurses and this scenario needs to be rectified.

Objective: Present study is focused on assessing risk of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among nurses engaged in different activities of healthcare.

Method: A video film was recorded in real postures during the various actives performed by the nurses. Snaps were cropped after a fixed interval for each of the activity. The work postures were evaluated using REBA tool.

Results: As per the REBA assessment, 3% nurses required immediately corrective measures and 20% nurses needed to correct their postures as soon as possible, 52% nurses needed further investigation due to moderate risk, 22% nurses are at low risk and only 3% are having negligible risk. Furthermore using REBA tool and questionnaires, it is found that major contributor in this MSDs of nurses is the back. 36% nurses reported problem in their back due to forward bending most of the time, 10% are having problem in their neck, 26% nurses reported problem in feet due to standing and breaks of lesser duration. This paper is restricted to only posture analysis on observation based, however application of ergonomics posture was suggested to the nurses.

Conclusion: Awkward postures and manual patient handing in the workplace should be reduced. There is strong need of ergonomics techniques and low cost automation, in form of movable beds, elevators, application of various sensors to reduce the need of continuous monitoring, so that workload can be reduced and efficiency can be increased to affect the organizational cost and the society as a whole.