Perceived stress and lower back pain amongst nurses during the SARS-CoV-2, across hospitals in Durban, South Africa.
Laralyn L Naidoo, Jed L Davidson
PMID 40336381WHAT IT FOUND
During the COVID-19 peak, 50.0% of 86 Durban nurses reported higher lower back pain and 65.1% reported higher stress than before.
Stress and pain moved together, but most did not exercise and few workplaces offered pain strategies.
Key findings
01During the COVID-19 peak, 50.0% of nurses reported higher lower back pain than before, and 65.1% reported higher stress.
02The study reported a moderate positive association between stress and lower back pain during the pandemic (rho = 0.335, p = 0.002).
0379.1% of nurses did not perform exercise during the pandemic to reduce lower back pain, and 89.5% said their workplace did not provide exercise strategies during the pandemic.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The final sample was 86 nurses, not the intended 113, because of access limitations, so it may not represent all nurses in Durban. Most participants were from private hospitals, 73 of 86, so public-sector findings are based on only 13 nurses. Pain, stress, medication and exercise were self-reported, and nurses had to recall the pandemic period, so answers may be inaccurate. The study did not randomise participants or test an intervention, so it cannot show that stress caused lower back pain or that exercise or workplace strategies reduced pain. Some public-sector and private-sector comparison figures in the supplied text are unclear, so sector differences were not relied on. Anxiety or stress during the pandemic may have affected recall and honesty.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Research Foundation under postgraduate Masters funding. No other conflict-of-interest statement is provided in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported association as proof that stress caused lower back pain or that exercise or workplace strategies would have reduced pain. This was a self-report survey with recall bias and no tested intervention.