Factors Associated with Manual Handling Injuries: A Case-Control Study Employing the Health Belief Model

The Health Belief Model is a psychosocial model that explains and predicts health behaviors by focussing on attitudes and beliefs. This framework was used in a case-control study exploring associations with patient handling injuries to clinical nurses. The sample (n=352) were recruited from 9 hospitals in Western Australia: 84 cases and 268 controls. Cases were injured nurses who required leave from their clinical position as a result of a manual handling incident and controls were a random sample of nurses employed in clinical positions at participating hospitals. Initial analyses computed means, medians, comparison of means, and odds ratios. Factor analysis reduced data prior to logistic regression, which developed a significant model, 2 (6df, n = 332) = 83.87, p < 0.001 with 6 independent variables. The regression model correctly classified 81.3% of the cases, with 4 of the 6 significant independent variables assessing concepts explained by the Health Belief Model.

Adams J

Keywords: risk factors and attitudes, injuries, safe patient  handling, health belief model