Background Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), as one of the major occupational health issues worldwide, have shown an increasing positive rate year by year. Due to the unique demands of work, operating room nurses exhibit a higher positive rate of WMSDs compared to other occupational groups, necessitating active attention and intervention.

Objective To estimate the prevalence of WMSDs among operating room nurses in tertiary hospitals, explore the characteristics and latent categories of WMSDs, and analyze the influencing factors associated with the occurrence of WMSDs.

Method Using a randomized cluster sampling method, operating room nurses from nine tertiary hospitals in Urumqi were selected as study participants between December 2023 and January 2024. Data were collected through a general information questionnaire, an ergonomic questionnaire for operating room nurses, and the Chinese Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire. Latent class analysis was employed to examine the patterns of WMSDs among the nurses, while chi-square test and multinomial logistic regression were utilized to analyze the influencing factors of WMSDs.

Result A total of 411 valid questionnaires were collected in this survey. The positive rate of WMSDs among operating room nurses in the tertiary hospitals of Urumqi over the past year was 91.9%. The positive rates, ordered from highest to lowest by body region, were neck (79.1%), shoulders (70.3%), and lower back (68.1%). The operating room nurses were categorized into three distinct groups by latent class analysis: multi-site pain group, neck-shoulder-back pain group, and neck and lower back pain group. The results of the multinomial logistic regression models revealed that gender, job strain level, ergonomic load level in the operating room, and exposure to cold or drafty working conditions or not were significant influencing factors for reporting WMSDs among operating room nurses. Specifically, having less than 5 years of work experience, low ergonomic load level, low job strain, and moderate job strain were identified as protective factors against WMSDs. Conversely, exposure to cold or drafty working environments and being female were identified as risk factors for WMSDs. The logistic regression models also indicated that compared to the neck-lower back pain group, the neck-shoulder-back pain group had a higher probability of reporting low job strain (OR=0.168, 95%CI: 0.029, 0.968) and being female (OR=4.847, 95%CI: 2.506, 9.378). In contrast, when comparing to the neck-lower back pain group, the multi-site pain group had a higher probability of reporting, low-level ergonomic workload (OR=0.079, 95%CI: 0.015, 0.412), low job strain (OR=0.019, 95%CI: 0.002, 0.145), moderate job strain (OR=0.080, 95%CI: 0.016, 0.401), high job strain (OR=0.132, 95%CI: 0.027, 0.647), less than 5 years of work experience (OR=0.173, 95%CI: 0.044, 0.683), being female (OR=2.424, 95%CI: 1.130, 5.200), and exposure to cold or drafty working environments (OR=3.277, 95%CI: 1.657, 6.481).

Conclusion The positive rate WMSDs among operating room nurses in tertiary hospitals is notably high in Urumqi, with distinct co-occurrence characteristics observed within the population. To mitigate the risk of WMSDs, it is essential to implement targeted health education and prevention training programs tailored to different patterns of WMSDs. Additionally, improving working conditions, optimizing human resource allocation , and other proactive measures should be undertaken. These efforts will effectively reduce the incidence of WMSDs among operating room nurses and safeguard their occupational health.