news-record.com

GREENSBORO — A nursing researcher at UNCG has won a $264,106 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The UNCG team, led by nursing professor Susan Letvak, is one of only eight grant winners this year.

Letvak's research is focused on working conditions for registered nurses, the majority of whom work 12-hour shifts, and how nurses with health problems affect their patients and the health care system at large.

Letvak will use the grant to survey 2,500 registered nurses who work in hospitals across the state. She will also conduct focus groups for nurses working with health problems, their healthy co-workers and nurse managers. The team also will at the financial impact on hospitals and the health care system when nurses work with health problems.

Letvak did preliminary research with a $5,000 grant from UNCG. In personal interviews with 14 registered nurses, she found a proliferation of chronic musculoskeletal problems caused by lifting patients and depression.

The team also includes Christopher Ruhm, a health economist in UNCG's Bryan School of Business and Economics; and Sat Gupta, director of UNCG's statistics division.