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Abstract #154504

Lisa Pompeii, PhD, COHN-S¹, Ashley L. Schoenfisch, MSPH², and Hester J. Lipscomb, PhD². (1) Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Texas, 1200 Herman Pressler, W-1038, Houston, TX 77030, 713-500-9474, lisa.pompeii@uth.tmc.edu, (2) Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, 2200 West Main Street, Wachovia Building, DUMC 3834, Durham, NC 27710

Nursing personnel are at high risk for work-related back pain, as well as restricted and lost work time from these injuries. As staff-to-patient ratios descrease and patient populations become more ill, return to work becomes more challenging. Using quantitative and qualitative data we examined barriers to returning to work and problems working with restrictions among nursing personnel at a tertiary care medical center from the perspective of the injured worker, co-workers, and their managers. Thirty nursing staff who experienced lost-time from a work-related back injury were followed prospectively through confidential questionnaires to assess their experiences with the return to work process. A series of focus groups were also conducted with nurses, nursing assistants, and managers to get their perspectives on working with injured co-workers. Barriers to returning to work included a lack of available light duty work, especially for nurses aides. Nurses were able to work as a “charge nurse” without having to take a patient assignment, or to work on unit specific projects. Accommodations were viewed more positively for staff who appeared to be more socially integrated into the work unit. However, nurse managers expressed difficulty finding work assignments for all personnel if their restrictions lasted for an extended period of time, suggesting that it had the potential to create morale issues for the unit. Survey findings suggest that in large part nursing personnel feel supported by their coworkers, but the nature of the work makes it difficult for them to always be appropriately accommodated.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify barriers of returning to work after sustaining a work-related back injury among nursing personnel.
• Describe difficulties that nurse managers encounter when trying to provide safe work assignments for their staff.
• Identify study methods that fostered data collection about return-to-work issues.

Keywords: Nurses, Occupational Health

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.