Quality of Work Life and Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders among Nursing Professionals*

Objective: To evaluate the association of Quality of Work Life (QWL) with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among nursing professionals working in the surgical unit. Methods: A quantitative descriptive, cross-sectional and correlational approach, in which 211 nursing workers participated, from 11 hospitals in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. For data collection, three instruments were used: sociodemographic and professional characteristics, the Visual Analogue Scale, and the Nordic Questionnaire. Results: The majority of participants were auxiliary nurses (62.6%), female gender (87.1%), married (54.5%), with a mean age of 40 years. Among the participants, 38.9% presented with musculoskeletal complaints in the lumbar region and 37.9% in the shoulder region. In this study, the QWL obtained a statistically significant association with the musculoskeletal disorders in the lumbar region and shoulders over the past 12 months (p = 0.00). Conclusion: The absence of lumbar pain contributed significantly to elevating the measure of QWL (p = 0.010), although the final regression model explained only 22.6% of the variance of the measure of QWL.