How to Prevent Nurse Back Pain at Your Facility: 5 Tips

Nurses are highly vulnerable to injuries because of care tasks that require frequent bending and lifting. Particularly when it comes to nurses and back pain, statistics speak volumes. Up to 90% of nurses report complaints of back pain, with roughly 70% experiencing recurring symptoms. Since there are so many physical demands of the job, it’s important for facilities to take the initiative to help prevent nurse back pain.

If you’re a facility leader concerned about the frequency of back injuries in healthcare workers, you may be seeking ways to better support your staff. We’ll provide five practical strategies that you can implement to build a safer, more ergonomic work environment for your nurses.

What Causes Nurse Back Pain?

Nursing can be a very physical job, often requiring the repositioning, transferring, and moving of patients who have limited mobility. When these tasks are carried out repeatedly or in an unsafe manner, this can cause muscle straining and lead to nurse back injury or pain.

Even common care tasks such as bathing or dressing patients can contribute to low back pain in nurses over time. When these responsibilities are coupled with long work hours, overtime, and minimal workplace support, nurses are at even higher risk of experiencing long-term disability.

Why Are Facility-Level Prevention Measures Necessary?

Back pain in nurses can lead to many unwanted consequences for staff and facilities. Back pain can be debilitating in a nursing professional’s day-to-day life, impacting things like sleep and the ability to enjoy activities outside of work. This can worsen a nurse’s overall quality of life and contribute to feelings of frustration toward their jobs.

For facilities, this can worsen workflow efficiency, increase work absences due to injuries, and contribute to burnout, leading to higher staff turnover. It’s important for facilities to prioritize back pain prevention since there are many job-related factors that cause these rippling issues.

5 Tips To Help Prevent Nurse Back Pain

Back pain prevention requires a multifaceted approach to enhance the safety of the physical environment. Follow these five tips to better support your nursing staff in their everyday work.

1. Conduct an Ergonomic Evaluation

An ergonomic assessment is a great way to inform measures needed to make the physical workplace more nurse-friendly. This involves identifying and understanding what risk factors in the environment should be removed to prevent staff-related injuries. To conduct an ergonomic evaluation, you can:

• Assess what types of jobs and tasks exceed the limitations of your staff.
• Review regulatory requirements and policies needed to create a safe physical space.
• Evaluate any devices in the environment that help or hinder job duties.

2. Provide Manual Handling Training

When it comes to heavy lifting, movements can be carried out to minimize the risk of muscle injury. It’s important to train nurses on these techniques to ensure they’re handling patient transfers in the safest manner possible. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provides a number of resources and toolkits that facilities can use to implement evidence-based manual handling education for staff.

3. Supply Patient Transfer Devices

Another way to provide back support for nurses is to adopt or install patient transfer devices designed to relieve pressure and friction during heavy lifting. There are a number of devices that have been created to assist nurses in moving patients. This includes:

• Mechanical full-body lifts (mobile or ceiling-mounted)
• Powered sit-to-stand lifts
• Friction-reducing devices, such as roll boards
• Transfer belts that can be placed around patients

It’s important to distinguish these patient transfer devices from transfer belts that are made to be worn by nurses. Nurse-worn belts aren’t recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), since there’s not a lot of research on safe or effective usage. These belts are typically worn by nurses recovering from previous back injuries, as recommended by their doctors.

4. Hire a Lifting Team

If there are units in your facility where back injuries are occurring more frequently than usual, consider hiring a designated team of staff who are trained and equipped to aid with patient lifting. Studies have shown that a designated team of lifters not only reduces the risk of recurring back pain and injury among nurses, but also increases satisfaction among staff and patients.

5. Support a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Since working longer hours and stress can also worsen and/or increase the risk of back pain, it’s important to support work-life balance among your nursing staff. Implement these strategies to promote self-care and improve the wellbeing of your nurses:

• Ensure units are adequately staffed to prevent overtime.
• Assign reasonable patient loads to help prevent burnout.
• Utilize float pool staff instead of calling nurses in on their days off.
• Foster and maintain a healthy work environment.

Discover More Ways to Build a Safer Workplace for Your Staff

Implementing measures to prevent nurse back pain is one of many ways to support your staff. Don’t miss out on IntelyCare’s other free management tips and guides that are designed to help you foster a safe and positive work environment.