Association between perceived inadequate staffing and musculoskeletal pain among hospital patient care workers

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Int Arch Occup Environ Health
• Personal Author:
  Kim, Seung-Sup ; Okechukwu, Cassandra ; Dennerlein, Jack T. ; Boden, Leslie I. ; Hopcia, Karen ; Hashimoto, Dean M. ; Sorensen, Glorian
• Description:
  Objective ; To examine association between perceived inadequate staffing and musculoskeletal pain and to evaluate the role of work-related psychosocial and physical work factors in the association among hospital patient care workers. ; Methods ; A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1572 patient care workers in two academic hospitals. Perceived inadequate staffing was measured using the ‘staffing adequacy subscale’ of Nursing Work Index, which is a continuous scale that averages estimates of staffing adequacy by workers in the same units. Musculoskeletal pain (i.e. neck/shoulder, arm, low back, lower extremity, any musculoskeletal pain, and the number of area in pain) in the past 3 months was assessed using a self-reported Nordic questionnaire. Multilevel logistic regression was applied to examine associations between perceived inadequate staffing and musculoskeletal pain, considering clustering among the workers in the same units. ; Results ; We found significant associations of perceived inadequate staffing with back pain (OR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.04, 2.15) and the number of body area in pain (OR: 1.42, 95% CI: 1.01, 2.00) after adjusting for confounders including work characteristics (job title, having a second job or not, day shift or not, and worked hours per week). When we additionally adjusted for physical work factors (i.e. use of a lifting device, and the amount of the time for each of five physical activities on the job), only the association between perceived inadequate staffing and back pain remained significant (OR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.03, 2.19), whereas none of the associations was significant for all of musculoskeletal pains including back pain (OR: 0.92, 95% CI: 0.66, 1.41) when we additionally adjusted for work-related psychosocial factors (i.e. job demands, job control, supervisor support, and co-worker support) instead of physical work factors. ; Conclusions ; Perceived inadequate staffing may be associated with higher prevalence of back pain and work-related psychosocial factor may play an important role in the potential pathway linking staffing level to back pain among hospital workers.
• Subjects:
  • Article
  • Inadequate staffing
  • musculoskeletal pain
  • health care
  • back pain
  • hospital worker
  • Academic Medical Centers
  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Aged
  More +
• Source:
  Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 87(3):323-330.
• Pubmed ID:
  23475312
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5321209
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U19 OH008861/OH/NIOSH CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  87
• Issue:
  3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/44342/cdc_44342_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 83.66 KB]
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f2a49515d5746f3d7754b34e306bcfe26d278e5f7b0712151e7076fc97482481