Assessment of nurses' and therapists' occupational musculoskeletal injuries.

INTRODUCTION: Occupational musculoskeletal injuries are serious issues facing health care professionals and health care facilities in the United States today. PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to investigate health care worker occupational injury patterns to gain better understanding of the injuries. METHOD: A descriptive study was conducted at a 497-bed hospital to investigate the patterns of occupational injuries of nursing and therapy personnel. A secondary data analysis was conducted on data collected by the occupational health department of a hospital. FINDINGS: Two years of occupational injury reports were analyzed. The evidence showed the overall injury rate between nurses and therapists was similar. Health care professionals ages 50 to 59 were employees injured most frequently. The most injuries occurred between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., and Wednesday was the most frequent day of injury. Most employees reported the injury on the day of the injury and did not lose work time from the event. Surgical services department had the most injuries, and back injuries were the most common type of musculoskeletal injury. CONCLUSION: By recognizing the type of injuries, location of injuries, time of injuries, and impact of injuries, nurses can make changes to decrease work-related musculoskeletal injuries and improve work environments.

Nurses' and therapists experiences with occupational musculoskeletal injuries.

Occupational musculoskeletal injuries are costly to the health care industry. It is estimated that 12% of nurses leave the profession annually because of back injuries. With the use of grounded theory methodology, 15 nursing personnel and physical therapists were interviewed about their perceptions of occupational musculoskeletal injuries. Analysis of the data identified major themes, including feelings of fear and frustration; chronic issue and part of the job; love of the profession and concerns about continuing in the profession; increased risk of injury; compliant with treatment; negative impact on quality of life; negative feelings about the occupational health department; and educational needs. A theory began to emerge in which health care workers accepted occupational injuries as part of the job and took no action or initiated only minor interventions to prevent work-related injuries. The study indicates a need for education and better communication.