Preventing musculoskeletal disorders in nurses: a safe patient handling curriculum module for nursing schools

Nursing educators who teach outmoded manual patient handling techniques contribute to the widespread problem of musculoskeletal disorders in student and practicing nurses. The authors discuss the development and implementation of a new safe patient handling curriculum module, which was pilot tested in 26 nursing programs. The module changes the focus of patient handling education from body mechanics to equipment-assisted safe patient lifting programs that have been shown to protect nurses from injury and improve care.