#0082 Quality of life among district hospital nurses with multisite musculoskeletal symptoms in Vietnam
Quality of Life of Vietnamese District Hospital Nurses with Multisite Musculoskeletal Symptoms
Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are highly common among nurses, with around 72% of them suffering from them. If not addressed, MSDs can drastically affect the quality of life of nurses and, thus, affect the quality of care that they provide to patients. Additionally, MSDs may disrupt nurses’ work-life balance and become a burden for healthcare by diminishing their productivity and possibly increasing the number of sick leaves that they take.
Multisite musculoskeletal symptoms (MMS) may also represent similar problems which are seen to be highly prevalent among nurses in Vietnam. Yet, despite these concerns, the effects of MMS on the quality of life of Vietnamese nurses are understudied.
In a new study, we aimed to fill this gap. We investigated the effects of MMS, a number of demographic and work characteristics, and psychological distress on the quality of life of district hospital nurses in Haiphong, one of the largest cities of Vietnam.
Haiphong has 281 medical establishments and 15 district hospitals per the Vietnamese Health Statistics Yearbook of 2016. We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional survey of all the nurses that met our criteria in these hospitals. Overall, 1179/1279 nurses participated in direct interviews that lasted between 30 and 45 minutes. They responded to four questionnaires on their sociodemographics, history of musculoskeletal problems, quality of life, and emotional states.
We found that MMS were more common among women (57.1%) than men (37.6%). Significantly, we found that nurses with musculoskeletal symptoms in a high number of sites had a lower score for quality of life. This depreciating effect on their quality of life was also the result of psychological distress, leading us to believe that both the number of musculoskeletal symptom sites and psychological distress have a bearing on the quality of life of nurses.
Due to the cross-sectional nature of this study, we could not establish a causal relationship between these factors; however, we did find that other factors like gender (female) and old age (50-60 years) were also good predictors of a lower quality of life.
Through our findings, we could establish that there is a relationship between MMS, psychological distress, and the quality of life among Vietnamese nurses. Future research can build on this study by digging deeper into the relationships to determine their causes.
Link to the original journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/1348-9585.12161
Title of the paper:
Quality of life among district hospital nurses with multisite musculoskeletal symptoms in Vietnam
Authors:
Thanh Hai Nguyen, Duc Luan Hoang, Thi Giang Hoang, Minh Khue Pham, Van Khai Nguyen, Julie Bodin, Jean-Dominique Dewitte, Yves Roquelaure
