Abstract:
Background: Work-related Musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) are common among nurses.
Nursing undergraduates are not competent enough in safe- patient handling while maintaining the
correct body techniques. Studies in this area are effective to reduce the occurrence of WMSD
among future nursing cadre enabling them to continue optimum patient care.
Objectives: To evaluate the prevalence, knowledge, and preventive practice on WMSD among
nursing undergraduates of University of Ruhuna (UoR)
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the all-registered nursing
undergraduates of 3rd and 4th year (n=95) in Nursing Degree Programme, Faculty of Allied Health
Sciences, UoR during July to August 2022 using a pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire. The
questionnaire consisted of few sections including Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (to screen
for musculoskeletal pain in last 12 months), 07 questions to evaluate the knowledge (high; 6-7,
moderate; 3–5, low; 0–2), 08 questions to assess the preventive practices (optimum; 17-24,
moderate; 9-16, low; 0-8). The data were analyzed with SPSS version 25.0 with descriptive
statistics and Chi-squared test.
Results: The majority (96.8%, n=92) of undergraduates were suffering from WMSDs during last
12 months. Of the sample, 67(70.5%) nursing undergraduates reported ankles/feet pain after the
working hours of clinical placements. A least had complained (n=5, 5.3%) of having pain in
elbows. Age, gender, academic year, nationality and body mass index had no association with the
prevalence of WMSDs among nursing students (p>0.05). The majority of students (n=62, 65.3%)
had high level of knowledge regarding the WMSDs while a least (n=5, 5.3%) had low level of
knowledge. Of the participants, 51.6% had low, 41.1% had moderate levels of preventive practices
while only a few had optimum level (7.4%) of practices. Prevalence of WMSDs had no significant
associations with either level of knowledge (p=0.43) or levels of practices (p=0.63).
Conclusions: A high prevalence of WMSDs was reported among the study group. Even though
students had high level of knowledge regarding the WMSDs, they do not practice proper
techniques to reduce the WMSDs.
Keywords: Knowledge, Nursing students, Prevalence, Preventive practices, Work related
musculoskeletal disorders
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