A low back pain ocurrence study in nursing staff of an University Hospital of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the characteristics of the low back pain occurrence in 70 technicians and 6 nursing aides that executed, exclusively, direct care to the inpatient of the three clinical units of an university hospital of Belo Horizonte. It was obtained 56% of the workers with reference of chronic pain in the backs and 33% with pain reference with sporadic episodes. The most frequent locations of pain went respectively to lumbar and cervical, with resolution in 87,8% of the cases in less than one week. It was verified that 92% of the workers denied disease diagnosed in the spine, 76% related the pain occurrence to the handle of loads and to the excess of physical effort. The results suggest the gravity of this problem for the nursing and the need of the detection of the several factors involved in the occurrence of low back pain in these workers.