The Importance of Proper Body Mechanics for Nurses Research Paper

The Importance of Proper Body Mechanics for Nurses - Research Paper Example 1).† In fulfilling their role and performing the services expected of them, which often involve patient handling maneuvers such as repositioning, lifting and transferring patients, nurses often sustain a spectrum of occupational injuries (The American Nurses Association (ANA), 2011). These occupational injuries amongst health care professionals are fairly common and are a cause of great concern not only for the individuals suffering from these injuries but also for the health care system as a whole, since these problems have significant economic implications in the form of work loss, compensations and recruitment and retention issues (Menzel, Hughes, Waters, Shores, & Nelson, 2007). This paper throws light on the different occupational injuries that are common amongst health care professionals due to manual patient handling and discusses their implications for the nurses and the health care system. Moreover, the main focus of this paper is on the importance of the use of proper body mechanics as a measure for the prevention of the aforementioned occupational injuries in order to reduce the incidence of these injuries and of the potential adverse outcomes that can occur as a result of these injuries. The scope of the problem: Manual patient handling is an essential component of the services that nurses perform and there is virtually no patient care specialty which does not require these services. This means that nurses are always at a risk of sustaining musculoskeletal work-related injuries, be they employed in any patient care specialty (Menzel, Hughes, Waters, Shores, & Nelson, 2007). Moreover, with the increasing prevalence of obesity in the society, the risk to health care professionals is even more due to the greater amount of weight being handled, because a greater proportion of the patients presenting to them are now overweight or obese (Menzel, Hughes, Waters, Shores, & Nelson, 2007). These work-related injuries have several implications both for t he nurses and other health care professionals but also for the health care system as a whole since they are not only a cause of significant morbidity for individuals suffering from them, but also pose an economic burden since they incur losses in the form of time off from work, burnout and recruitment and retention (Menzel, Hughes, Waters, Shores, & Nelson, 2007). It has been seen that each year, about 40-50% of nurses report having work-related back pain, making them rank the highest amongst all health care professional suffering from work-related injuries (Edlich, Winters, Hudson, Britt, & Long, 2004). Nurses have been found to have a 35-80% lifetime prevalence of back pain occurring as a result of the nature of their job which often requires manual patient handling (Edlich, Winters, Hudson, Britt, & Long, 2004) and approximately 12% of the nurses have been found to quit their jobs and give up their profession due to back injuries (Gropelli & Corle, 2010). Moreover, according to a report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics RN’s rank the 6th amongst professionals at risk of occupational injuries (The American Nurses Association (ANA), 2011). On the other hand, from an economic perspective the magnitude of the burden that this problem of occupational injuries posed on the health care system can be gauged from the fact that nursing personnel have been found t