Impaired hospitalized patient mobility is associated with nurse injuries

K H McLaughlin; D L Young; E Colantuoni; K Funk; A M Stone; J Ballreich; E H Hoyer

doi:10.1093/occmed/kqad135

Impaired hospitalized patient mobility is associated with nurse injuries

Occup Med (Lond). 2023 Dec 30;73(9):554-556. doi: 10.1093/occmed/kqad135.

Authors

K H McLaughlin^{1

2}, D L Young^{1

3}, E Colantuoni⁴, K Funk², A M Stone⁵, J Ballreich⁶, E H Hoyer¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
² Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
³ Department of Physical Therapy, University of Nevada; Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA.
⁴ Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 N Wolf Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
⁵ Department of Health, Safety, and Environment, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1800 Orleans Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
⁶ Department of Health Policy and Management, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 615 N Wolf Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.

PMID: 38079479
DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqad135

Abstract

Background: Staff injuries adversely affect the health of staff members as well the ability of health care teams to effectively care for patients. Identifying patients who pose an increased risk of injury may allow for the planning of risk mitigation strategies, but few studies have examined patient factors associated with staff injury risk.

Aims: Examine the relationship between staff injury and patient mobility, which has been linked to other key hospital outcomes.

Methods: Linking occupational health and electronic medical record data, we examined documented patient mobility levels, based on the Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care (AM-PAC) and the Johns Hopkins Highest Level of Mobility (JH-HLM) Scale, on the day prior to injury. In addition, we created a matched cohort of control patients not associated with staff injury to examine the influence of patient mobility on the odds of staff injury.

Results: We identified 199 staff injuries associated with 181 patients with 1063 matched controls. Patients had median scores of 11 and 3 on the AM-PAC and JH-HLM, respectively, indicating moderate-severe mobility impairments. In addition, scores in the lowest AM-PAC tertile (6-15) and lowest JH-HLM tertile (1-4) were associated with a 4.46-fold and 2.90-fold increase in the odds of nurse injury, respectively.

Conclusions: These results indicate that moderate-severe mobility impairments are associated with increased risk of nurse injury. Hospitals and clinical care teams should consider documenting mobility routinely and utilizing these values to identify patients who pose an increased risk of nurse injury.

MeSH terms

Hospitals*
Humans
Mobility Limitation*