Research Plus

Preventing nurses’ back pain

A systematic review of evidence published up to November 2004 on interventions to prevent back injury in nurses identified just 16 studies (eight randomised controlled trials) meeting inclusion criteria. Experimental design was generally poor, with just one high quality paper. There is no strong evidence on the efficacy of any intervention; however, there is moderate evidence that manual handling training alone is ineffective and that multidimensional strategies are required. There is ‘conflicting evidence’ on the efficacy of exercise interventions and the provision of manual handling equipment, and no supporting evidence for stress-management programmes in preventing back pain.

Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2007; 64: 642–650.  http://oem.bmj.com/content/64/10/642.abstract

Tags back pain evidence based practice manual handling

Occupational Health at Work October/November 2007 (vol. 04/3) pp40