# Exposure Time to Work-Related Hazards and Factors Affecting Musculoskeletal Pain in Nurses
## 4 Discussion  
The analysis of workplace hazards and their effects on employee health is important in identifying common factors contributing to health and safety issues and in developing effective prevention programs [1]. In this study, the most common area of nurses' musculoskeletal pain was upper limb pain at 26.0%, followed by back pain at 19.0% and lower limb pain at 15.2%. The highest musculoskeletal pain among nurses was upper limb pain (26.0%), followed by back pain (19.0%) and lower limb pain (15.2%). This is a different trend from the upper limb pain (22.4%), lower limb pain (11.7%), and back pain (7.6%) of automobile assembly workers in the manufacturing industry, and the pain complaint rate was found to be higher than that of automobile assembly workers. On the other hand, the pain complaint rate among nurses was lower than that of the construction industry. However, it showed a similar trend in pain areas such as upper limb pain (30.2%), back pain (24.0%), and lower limb pain (14.1%) in the construction industry. The results from estimating exposure time to hazards in nursing indicate that the time spent in a standing posture is the highest, followed by repetitive movements, awkward postures, patient lifting/carrying, infection, handling of heavy loads, and vibrations. Common hazards that show differences in average exposure time between the group complaining of back pain, upper limb, and lower limb pain and the group not complaining of pain are noise, awkward posture, patient lifting/carrying, handling heavy loads, and repetitive motions. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Variables**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Prevalence Rate (\%)**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**B**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\(p\)**-Value**} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{**OR**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**95\% C.I. for OR**} \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{3-10} \multicolumn{1}{c}{Working hours/week} & & & & 0.087 & & & **Lower** & **Upper** \\ \cline{3-10} \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(<\)41 (ref) & 13.9\% & & & 0.087 & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(\geq\)41 & 17.1\% & 0.514 & 0.087 & 1.672 & 0.928 & 3.012 \\ Noise & & & & 0.068 & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(<\)2 h (ref) & 13.6\% & & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(2\)–4 h & 33.3\% & 0.291 & 0.658 & 1.338 & 0.369 & 4.851 \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(\geq\)4 h & 83.3\% & 2.690 & 0.022 \({}^{*}\) & 14.731 & 1.482 & 146.413 \\ Awkward posture & & & & 0.001 \({}^{*}\) & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(<\)2 h (ref) & 10.0\% & & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(2\)–4 h & 6.3\% & \(-\)1.057 & 0.084 & 0.347 & 0.105 & 1.154 \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(\geq\)4 h & 31.9\% & 0.926 & 0.003 \({}^{*}\) & 2.523 & 1.360 & 4.681 \\ Patient lifting/carrying & & & & 0.002 \({}^{*}\) & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(<\)2 h (ref) & 10.4\% & & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(2\)–4 h & 22.1\% & 0.938 & 0.006 \({}^{*}\) & 2.555 & 1.307 & 4.996 \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(\geq\)4 h & 48.3\% & 1.385 & 0.005 \({}^{*}\) & 3.997 & 1.529 & 10.443 \\ Repetitive motion & & & & 0.006 \({}^{*}\) & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(<\)2 h (ref) & 7.5\% & & & & & \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(2\)–4 h & 22.4\% & 1.358 & 0.003 \({}^{*}\) & 3.887 & 1.581 & 9.558 \\ \multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \(\geq\)4 h & 21.4\% & 0.835 & 0.014 \({}^{*}\) & 2.306 & 1.183 & 4.494 \\ Constant & & & \(-\)3.207 & \(<\)0.001 \({}^{*}\) & 0.040 & & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}  
* significant at 0.05, ref = reference, OR = odds ratio, C.I. = confidence interval.  
\end{table} 
Table 8: Results of binary logistic regression analysis with lower limb pain. A logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the factors that affect musculoskeletal pain. Factors influencing upper limb pain included worker characteristics such as rotating shift work and ergonomic factors like handling heavy loads, standing posture, and repetitive motion.