Musculoskeletal complaints in nurses who provide home-based healthcare

Abstract

Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) have been described as the major occupational health problem affecting nurses. Main goals of this work are the characterization and evaluation of musculoskeletal complaints in nurses who work at Health Centres at the Northern Portugal and that provide home-based care. This work demonstrates an analysis of the responses to a questionnaire based on one other developed by Kuorinka and colleagues. The body areas with more complaints are the back and shoulders. There is statistically significant association only between “musculoskeletal complaints in the lumbar region” and “provide home care” (OR=4.21 (p<0.05), 95% Confidence Interval [1.4; 13.2]). Based on these results we can say that nurses who provide home-based care have a fourfold chance of having musculoskeletal complaints in the lumbar region than the others.