Prevalence and influencing factors of low back pain among nurses in China: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Article Category: Original article
Published Online: Jan 05, 2021
Page range: 329 - 336
Received: Jun 09, 2020
Accepted: Jul 11, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fon-2020-0042
Keywords
© 2020 Dong-Yang Wang et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Background
Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common occupational injuries that nurses experience in their daily work, which ultimately causes disability or difficulty in performing heavy physical activity. There is scarce information that presents a direct figure about the prevalence of LBP in Chinese nurses.
Objective
To systematically review and analyze the prevalence and influencing factors of LBP among nurses in China.
Methods
Related literature extracted from PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases were selected and reviewed based on the PRISMA guideline. Random effects models were used for data analysis, where heterogeneity was tested through I2. Egger's test was used to analyze the literature publication bias.
Results
The combined data indicated that the prevalence of LBP among nurses in China was 78% [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.72–0.83]. The prevalence of LBP among nurses in China has declined in the past decade. Nurses presented a high risk of LBP in terms of female (OR = 2.38, 95% CI = 1.23–3.44,
Conclusions
There is a high prevalence of LBP among nurses in China. Interventions that include healthy dietary habits and physical activity mainly focusing on female married nurses who are working for at least 10 years should be implemented. Furthermore, nurses ought to apply ergonomic principles for personal protection at the workplace.