A LISREL ANALYSIS OF WORK-RELATED RISK-FACTORS AND HEALTH COMPLAINTS IN THE NURSING PROFESSION

Objectives: To fit a model which describes the complex interaction bet ween various work-related factors and both musculoskeletal and psychos omatic complaints of nurses simultaneously and to compare the results with those of two LISREL models, in which the health outcome variables are analyzed separately in terms of their correlation with the same s et of work-related factors. Materials and methods: Nurses (n = 718) wo rking in four Dutch nursing homes completed a questionnaire about work -related factors and musculoskeletal and psychosomatic complaints (res ponse 81%). LISREL was used to describe and analyse the models. Result s: The full model had a reasonable overall fit. The strongest (and sta tistically significant) correlations were found between work postures and musculoskeletal complaints and between psychosocial work demands a nd psychosomatic complaints. In the two single models, health outcomes showed statistically significant correlations with the same work-rela ted factors as they did in the full model. The full model could be sli ghtly improved when the variable somatized complaints (e.g., dizzyness , headache) was related both to musculoskeletal complaints and to psyc hosomatic complaints. Conclusions: Although a model that simultaneousl y describes more dependent variables appears to provide a better appro ximation of the complexity of the actual relationship between work-rel ated factors and health effects, the models in which only one health o utcome is studied seem to give a proper description of the data at han d. This is an important finding because these single health outcome mo dels resemble the usual analysis strategy by means of standard regress ion analysis. The adapted version of the full model suggests that musc uloskeletal complaints of nurses can partly be understood as non-speci fic health complaints.