The Frequency of Musculoskeletal Pain in Nurses Working in Internal Medicine Intensive Care Unit and Related Factors

Abstract

Background: The primary purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of musculoskeletal pain in nurses working in the internal medicine intensive care unit and to determine whether there were differences between nurses working in the internal medicine clinic. In addition, it was aimed to determine the individual and professional risk factors that will cause musculoskeletal pain in nurses working in the internal medicine intensive care unit. Material and Methods: After evaluating eligibility, 82 volunteer nurses, 36 working in the internal medicine intensive care unit and 46 working in the internal medicine clinic, were included in this single-centre, cross-sectional and descriptive study. The demographic characteristics of the participants, their regular exercise status and the factors related to their working conditions were determined by the questionnaire form created by the researchers. Results: Musculoskeletal pain was detected in 61.11% of internal medicine intensive care nurses. There was no statistical difference between the internal medicine intensive care and clinical nurses regarding musculoskeletal pain (p>0.05). A statistically significant relationship was found between the situation of changing the patient's clothes and positioning the patient and the occurrence of musculoskeletal pain (p<0.001). No significant relationship was found between internal medicine intensive care nurses' musculoskeletal pain and their demographic characteristics, regular exercise status and other working conditions (p>0.05). Conclusions: Our study showed that nurses working in the internal medicine intensive care unit experienced a high rate of musculoskeletal pain. The study results will shed light on what kind of precautions nurses should take against work-related musculoskeletal pain.

Keywords

• Work-related musculoskeletal pain
• intensive care unit nurse
• clinical nurse
• risk factors
• spine pain
• non-spine pain

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