Application of Preventive Practices of Musculoskeletal Disorders by Nurses: A Knowledge Transfer Approach

Musculoskeletal disorders constitute one of the main occupational hazards among nurses, despite the availability of much research on its application of preventive practices in occupational health and safety (OHS). This research focussed mainly on the effectiveness of preventive measures in specific contexts without, however, documenting the necessary skills for nurses (e.g. cognitive skills, experiential skills) to implement preventive practices in their day-to-day activities. The aim of this theoretical study is to revisit the major theoretical viewpoints that nurses hold on "knowledge application", and to propose a new conceptual framework of knowledge absorption. This is to better understand the often overlooked dimension in knowledge transfer, i.e. the conditions of knowledge appropriation on preventive practices by nursing staff. Such an approach has the advantage of taking into consideration, on the one hand, all the stages involved when individuals are applying the preventive practices and, on the other hand, the factors facilitating or constraining this process (i.e. individual, organizational, and those related to the attributes of preventive practices). According to Todorova and Durisin (2007), these dynamic capacities are deployed in five stages. First is the identification of knowledge, a stage in which users must anticipate a potential benefit. Then comes the effort to acquire this knowledge, which can be encouraged by the mechanisms of knowledge renewal. With the uptake of knowledge, users are better able to understand the subject at hand and grasp its true scope. The transformation of knowledge reflects, in turn, the need to adapt knowledge to the context of the user. Finally, the application of knowledge is illustrated by the formalization of knowledge into practice (Zahra et Georges, 2002, Estabrooks et al., 2006).