A PREVALENCE STUDY ON WORK-RELATED STRESS AND RELATIONSHIP WITH LOW BACK PAIN (LBP) AMONG NURSING STAFF IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITALS OF KARACHI, SINDH.

http://doi.org/10.46536/jpumhs/2023/13.01.385

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Musculoskeletal health defines to the act of the locomotor system, consists intact

muscles, bones, joints and face-to-face connective tissues. The most common issue among nurses is Low

Back Pain, compared to other health care providers such as dcotors, consultant and parmamedics. The

overall health of nurses including physical, mental, and social health can be affected due to occupational

or job or work stress. Moreover, the increasing demands at work and higher work stress among nurses

may predispose them to back ache. The higher occurrence of pain in lowerback among nursing staff is

responsible for reduced productivity of workers and increased medical expenditures of both individual,

their family and ultimately nurses could not able to contribute in developing nation economy. This

research was intended to conclude the frequency of work-stress and their association with Low Back Pain

among working nureses of Karachi. Objective: This research study was aimed to define prevalance of

job-stress and factors assoiated with back ache or pain in lower back among nurses working in a tertinary

care hospitals in Karachi. Design of study: Descriptive Cross-sectional. Place & Duration: Dow

University hospital and Civil Hospital Karachi, from May 2019 to August 2019. Materials and

Methods: This cross-sectional study was implementated during May-August 2019 on total sample of

target population that is 324, working at tertiary care hospitals in Karachi, with minimum qualification of

3 years diploma in nursing, and had minimum 1 year of working experience. The data collection

instrument consisted of a section on demographic information and Nursing Stress Scale. The analysis of

data was done through SPSS 21.0, Data scrutiny involved in the use of descriptive statistics. Moreover

chi-square test was used for comparative and qualitiative analysis. Results: In this study, 59%

participants were male and 75% having bachelor degree. Overall, 91 (28.1%) nurses reported that they did

not have work stress while presence of high stress was found in only 4 (1.7%) nurses. low to moderate

level of stress was observed in 229 (70.6%) nurses. Although low back pain was positively associated

with work stress. The findings were not statistically significant (p>0.05) to draw reasonable conclusions.

The findings were similar for all the work stress subscales except that 12-month Low Back Pain

frequency was negative correlated with conflict with physicians (r=-.222, p=.008). Conclusion: The

frequency of low to moderate work stress was found high among health care professional (nurses)

employed in two hospitals of Karachi, while there is also association found between low back pain and

job-stress. However, it was not clear whether there is a connection or not between work stress and low

back pain.