EDMONTON, Alberta, July 31 (UPI) -- Nurses suffer from work-related lower back pain more often than workers in other professions, according to a University of Alberta study.
Lead author Edgar Vieira, a doctoral student in the University of Alberta faculty of rehabilitation medicine, says nurses hurt their backs while turning bed-ridden patients or transferring them among stretchers, beds and chairs.
Orthopedic and intensive care unit nurses have the highest rates of low back pain among all nurses -- 65 percent of orthopedic nurses and 58 percent of ICU nurses develop debilitating low back pain at some point in their careers, according to the study in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.
"If a patient is unconscious, nurses will try to turn him every two hours or so to prevent him from getting bed sores," said Vieira. "If you consider that nurses often work 12-hour shifts, the amount of lifting in one shift adds up a lot, and you can see how the job could be very hard to manage physically."
Mechanical lifting devices, currently used only about 15 percent of the time, would be a big help to nurses, says Vieira.
"Also, hospital rooms are often small, and nurses have to move furniture around so that they can do their jobs -- most of the time lifting devices wouldn't even fit in these rooms," he added.
