Back or neck-pain-related disability of nursing staff in hospitals, nursing homes and home care in seven countries--results from the European NEXT-Study.

Background: Musculoskeletal disorders are a widespread affliction in the nursing profession. Back or neck-pain-related disability of nursing staff is mainly attributed to physical and psychosocial risk factors.

Objectives: To investigate which-and to what extent-physical and psychosocial risk factors are associated with neck/back-pain-related disability in nursing, and to assess the role of the type of health care institution (hospitals, nursing homes and home care institutions) within different countries in this problem.

Design: Cross-sectional secondary analysis of multinational data of nurses and auxiliary staff in hospitals (n=16,770), nursing homes (n=2140) and home care institutions (n=2606) in seven countries from the European NEXT-Study.

Methods: Multinomial logistic regression analysis with raw models for each factor and mutually adjusted with all analysed variables.

Results: Analysis of the pooled data revealed effort-reward imbalance as the predominant risk factor for disability in all settings (odds ratios for high disability by effort-reward ratio: hospital 5.05 [4.30-5.93]; nursing home 6.52 [4.04-10.52] and home care 6.4 [3.83-10.70] [after mutual adjustment of psychosocial and physical risk factors]). In contrast, physical exposure to lifting and bending showed only limited associations with odds ratios below 1.6; the availability and use of lifting aids was-after mutual adjustment-not or only marginally associated with disability. These findings were basically confirmed in separate analyses for all seven countries and types of institutions.

Conclusions: The findings show a pronounced association between psychosocial factors and back or neck-pain-related disability. Further research should consider psychosocial factors and should take the setting where nurses work into account.