Samenvatting

Among nurses, low back pain is a common musculoskeletal
disorder. A significant proportion of back pain episodes can be
attributed to events that occur during patient handling activities
when nurses are exposed to heavy lifting, awkward back postures,
and pushing and/or pulling.
In the past years, many ergonomic interventions have been
developed, like lifting devices, to reduce mechanical load related to
patient handling activities in order to (partly) decrease the occurrence
of low back pain. The efficacy of lifting devices designed to
reduce mechanical load has been demonstrated in several laboratory
studies. However, the
timely and integrated implementation at the workplace remains
difficult. Various intervention studies have indicated that
individual behaviour of nurses is a key factor in successful implementation
of lifting devices in healthcare.
As examples, Evanoff et al. (2003) and Li et al. (2004) identified the
lack of perceived need to use lifts as an important barrier in the
effectiveness of lifting devices at the workplace. Nelson et al. (2006)
showed that acceptance of patient handling equipment by the staff
was a crucial facilitator in the implementation process of a multiple
intervention aimed at patient handling in healthcare. A previous
study in hospitals and nursing homes showed that individual
behaviour of nurses, i.e. nurses’ motivation to use lifting devices,
was strongly associated with lifting devices use. This study also pointed at the influence of organisationallevel
measures on nurses’ behaviour, comprising both factors in
each ward as well as at the managerial level of the healthcare
institute. Thus, the appropriate implementation of ergonomic
devices requires a careful process whereby individual behaviour is
supported by organisational measures in order to enable and
support the individual to adopt the required behaviour to prevent
musculoskeletal complaints. A recent systematic review corroborated
that upstream organisational strategies had a profound
impact on musculoskeletal health.