Effectiveness of an Educational Intervention on Body Mechanics and its Importance Among Staff Nurses at Nekemte Referral Hospital, Wollega Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Practicing body mechanic technique is a very important aspect to protect the nurses from occupational related musculoskeletal injuries while performing the strenuous activities such as lifting, moving and transferring the patient. Objectives: The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding body mechanics and its importance among staff nurses at Nekemte Referral Hospital, Wollega, Oromia region, Ethiopia. Methodology: An institutional based one-group pre-test and post-test pre-experimental design was adopted; the samples were chosen by purposive sampling techniques, which consist of 80 staff nurses from Nekemte Referral Hospital at Wollega, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. A structured knowledge questionnaire was given to assess the knowledge on body mechanics and its importance, which followed by an intervention giving a structured teaching program on body mechanics and followed by administering the same questionnaire to assess the post test. Results: The overall mean post-test knowledge score regarding body mechanics and its importance (13.91 ± 2.30) was significantly higher than the overall mean pre-test knowledge score (10.27 ± 2.17), and the obtained t-value was 10.26 which was higher than the table value. There was no significant association found between the pre-test knowledge score with the demographic variables of staff nurses.