Social Support Exchange and Nurses’ Musculoskeletal Injuries in a Team Context: Anger as a Mediator

Abstract

Work-based musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are prevalent among health-care workers, particularly the nursing staff. The authors focused on the perceived social support exchange imbalance or the combination of higher perceived obligation to provide support to and lower perceived available support from the coworkers and examined the association between support exchange imbalance and nurses’ MSDs via anger. Using a sample of 410 nurses from 29 units across two hospitals, the authors found that when individual nurses reported higher support exchange imbalance, they experienced more anger, which in turn was associated with more severe MSD symptoms in low back and upper limbs. The association between support exchange imbalance and anger was exacerbated when nurses perceived that a similar level of support was available within their unit.