Prevalance of low back pain among nurses in Koshi Zonal Hospital, Biratnagar, Nepal

Abstract

This small scale study on prevalence of low back pain among 50 nurses was done at selected different wards of Koshi zonal hospital. The main objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of low back pain among nurses. Nurses were included by convenient purposive sampling technique. Semi-structure questionnaire with both close and open ended question was used for data collection. The findings of the study show that 56% had complain of low back pain and among them nurses working in operation theatre and orthopedics ward was more (21%) prevalent. 38% of the respondents were staff nurse, 58% were married and 38% had more than 11 years of working experience as a registered nurse. Most (52%) of the nurses mentioned that back pain was developed after joining the hospital duty or was related to work and among them 4% had taken medical leave. The most frequent contributing factors identified by the respondents were lifting, transferring of patients, staff shortage and heavy work load.