Aim: This is a cross- sectional study to assess low back pain preventive behaviors among Iranians nursing aides who provide direct patient care in hospitals.
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) comprise significant occupational injuries and disabilities within the nursing profession. Studies show that implementing a safe patient handling can prevent low back pain among nursing aides.
Methods: This study was conducted in Qom (Iran) in 2015 with a sample of 452 eligible nursing aides working in six educational hospitals affiliated with Qom University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected by a researcher-developed questionnaire with 29 questions in two sections of demographic questions (17 items), and low back pain preventive behaviors were adopted from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines for nurses (12 items).
Findings: Totally, 452 nursing aides suffering from chronic low back pain participated in the study, which included 289 males (63.9%) and 163 females (36.6%) with mean age of 37.71 (SD = 8.3) years. The mean score of applying low back pain preventive behaviors was 32.9 ± 7.7. Fifty nine participants (13.1%) had poor behavior scores, 251 participants (55.5 %) obtained average scores, and 142 participants (31.4 %) achieved acceptable scores due to their preventive behaviors. The majority of the studied nursing aides (68.6%) did not consistently perform safe patient handling.
Conclusion: This study showed that most nursing aides had low preventive behaviors regarding maintaining their body mechanics. Thus, evaluating the causes of failing to do safe behaviors /safe patient handling is strongly recommended in Iran.