Prevalence of Low Back Pain among Nurses in a Tertiary Care Centre

Introduction: Low back pain (LBP) is defined as pain that occurs between the area of costal margin and gluteal fold. Low back pain is one of the common musculoskeletal health problems occuring mostly in nurses. Different research has shown that the association between low back pain and nurses is because of various factors. Disability because of pain leads to decreased quality of life for nurses and ultimately leading to decreased quality of patient care. This study was conducted to find the prevalence and associated factors of low back pain among nurses of Nepal Police Hospital. Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional study was done among nurses of various departments of Nepal Police Hospital. An email with a questionnaire was sent to the participants, and responses were recorded. Rolland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ-11 item) was used to assess disability related to low back pain. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 26 was used for the analysis of data. Descriptive statistics (percentage and frequency) and inferential statistics (chi-square) were used for the statistical analysis of the study. Significance level of P-value was taken as <0.05. Results: Out of 67 respondents, all were females, and the majority 41 ( 61.2 %) in the age group of 20-30 years and 37.3% were between the age group 30-40 years. Respondents were mostly from the medicine ward and ICU, accounting for 22.4 %. Mean service years was 7.9 ± 5.6 years. Low back pain prevalence was 74.6 %, and 60% of nurses had pain for less than 12 months. The mean RMDQ score was 3.6 ± 2.8. Low back pain was significantly associated with marital status, number of duty hours and working area (p<0.05). Conclusions: High prevalence of low back pain was seen among nurses of Nepal Police Hospital. It was more common among married nurses, working in the medicine department, and working > 60 hours a week. Most had a low disability as per RMDQ. Rest alleviated back pain in most of the cases. Only few had practice of doing back exercises at preventive measure.