SELF-CARE PRACTICES OF INDUSTRIAL WORKERS TO PREVENT LOW BACK PAIN.
Contributors: University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 89
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Low back injury has been documented as the most frequently occurring injury of all work accidents. A comparative design was used for the purpose of describing the self-care practices of body mechanics and physical activities that industrial workers used in one setting to prevent low back pain. Guided by Orem's Self-Care Model, the research questions posed were: (1) Is there a difference in the self-care practices related to body mechanics and physical activities of industrial workers who have experienced low back pain as compared to those who have not? (2) Is there a difference in the group means of the preventive self-care practices related to physical activities of industrial workers who have experienced low back pain as compared to those who have not?.

An investigator-developed Demographic Data and Self-Care Questionnaire was administered to 202 industrial workers. Data were collected on age, gender, height, weight, familial and work history as risk factors for low back pain. Reliability was established for the Self-Care Questionnaire by using graduate nursing students and provided a test-retest coefficient of .95.

Data were treated with the Chi-Square test and Fisher's Solution demonstrated that there was no difference in the preventive self-care practices of body mechanics or physical activities of industrial workers who experienced low back pain as compared to those who did not. Discriminant analysis revealed that there was no difference in the group means of the preventive self-care practices related to physical activities of industrial workers who experienced low back pain as compared to those who did not. It is concluded that factors other than the self-care practices of body mechanics and physical activities contribute to the incidence of low back pain in industrial workers.

Further research needs to be done to validate the self-care practices of body mechanics and physical activities with more precise methods. Research is needed to determine the correlation of psychological status, specific job requirements, and more specific physical activities to the incidence of low back pain.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-01, Section: B, page: 0089.

Thesis (D.S.N.)--UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM, 1986.

School code: 0005.