RockTape Application for the Treatment and Prevention of Back Pain in Intensive Care Nurses and Physician Assistants

Research Objectives: To assess whether kinesiology taping may be an effective noninvasive therapy to treat back pain among nurses working in a surgical intensive care unit.

Design: Prospective cohort study: Nurses working in the surgical intensive care unit of a tertiary care center were surveyed before and after the application of kinesiology tape.

Setting: Tertiary Care Center, Surgical Critical Care Unit/ Intensive Care Unit

Participants: Forty-nine (73.1%) of the original 67 participants returned the final completed questionnaire.

Interventions: Use of appropriately sized kinesiology tape, measured and attached to the backs of participants for a total of three consecutive days without removal.

Main Outcome Measures: Prior to intervention, 40 (59.7%) of participants reported that their pain at least slightly affected their day-to-day work activities. Seven (10.4%) reported a “moderate” affect, 4 (6.0%) reported “quite a bit” of an affect, and 1 (1.5%) reported an extreme affect. Fifteen (22.4%) reported no effect on their day-to-day activities.

At the 3-day follow up, 59.2% of final respondents reported no change in their symptoms, and 38.8% reported some degree of improvement in their pain.

Results: The results of this study demonstrate the perceived benefit of the use of kinesiology tape among ICU staff. Of the 67 participants, forty-nine (73.1%) responded to the final questionnaire. 59.2% of the final respondents reported no change in their symptoms, and 38.8% reported some degree of improvement in their pain.

Conclusions: While only 38.8% directly reported improvement in their pain, 71% reported none to mild pain, whereas only 54% gave these

scores on the initial survey, suggesting some overall improvement in subjective pain scores. Of the 7.5% who reported very severe pain on their initial survey, none reported very severe pain on their 3-day post-taping survey. Additionally, 63.3% reported that the use of RockTape enabled them to better perform their daily work activities

Author(s) Disclosures: N/A