Dataset Information

Musculoskeletal Pain in the Neck and Lower Back Regions among PHC Workers: Association between Workload, Mental Disorders, and Strategies to Manage Pain.

ABSTRACT: Scientific evidence indicates that workers in the health sector are commonly exposed to work-related musculoskeletal pain.

Objectives

We aimed to identify the relationship between the presence and intensity of musculoskeletal pain in the neck and lumbar regions reported by Primary Health Care (PHC) workers with workloads and occupational risks, analyze musculoskeletal pain in the presence and absence of self-reported mental disorders based on a medical diagnosis, and identify workers' strategies to manage pain.

Method

This cross-sectional study addressed 338 health professionals working in PHC outpatient services in the extreme South of Brazil. One questionnaire addressed sociodemographic questions concerning occupation, occupational risks, and mental disorders. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire was used to assess self-reported musculoskeletal pain. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) measured the workload. A descriptive and inferential analysis was performed using SPSS version 21.0.

Results

Most (55.3%) participants reported neck and (64.5%) lower back pain in the previous 12 months, and 22.5% and 30.5% reported intense neck and lower back pain, respectively, in the previous 12 months. The results showed different independent associations with increased musculoskeletal pain among health workers. Dentists presented the highest prevalence of neck pain, while female workers presented the highest prevalence of lower back pain. Furthermore, the perception of ergonomic risk and virtually all self-reported mental disorders (except panic syndrome for neck pain) were associated with pain in the neck and lower back regions and a higher frustration level (mental demand). Additionally, professionals with graduate degrees, nurses, and professionals working the longest in PHC services reported seeking complementary therapies more frequently, while physicians and those with self-reported mental disorders self-medicated more frequently.

SUBMITTER: Cezar-Vaz MR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9914445 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Musculoskeletal Pain in the Neck and Lower Back Regions among PHC Workers: Association between Workload, Mental Disorders, and Strategies to Manage Pain.

Cezar-Vaz Marta Regina MR Xavier Daiani Modernel DM Bonow Clarice Alves CA Vaz Jordana Cezar JC Cardoso Letícia Silveira LS Sant'Anna Cynthia Fontella CF da Costa Valdecir Zavarese VZ Nery Carlos Henrique Cardona CHC Alves Aline Soares AS Vettorello Joice Simionato JS de Souza Jociel Lima JL Loureiro Helena Maria Almeida Macedo HMAM

Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) 20230128 3

Scientific evidence indicates that workers in the health sector are commonly exposed to work-related musculoskeletal pain.<h4>Objectives</h4>We aimed to identify the relationship between the presence and intensity of musculoskeletal pain in the neck and lumbar regions reported by Primary Health Care (PHC) workers with workloads and occupational risks, analyze musculoskeletal pain in the presence and absence of self-reported mental disorders based on a medical diagnosis, and identify workers' str ...[more]

PMID: 36766940

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Project description:Background: Lower back pain is a public health concern affecting 70-85% of the world's population. There is paucity of published data on the prevalence, disability and risk factors for lower back pain among health workers in Uganda. Objective: To determine the frequency rate (note that is it implicit that frequency is a rate like incidence so including rate seems redundant here. This is bounded by zero and infinity. In contrast, prevalence is bounded by 0 and 1 and is thus a proportion not a rate) of lower back pain and its associated risks amongst health professionals in the Arua District of Uganda. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study of 245 consecutive participants conducted during February-April 2020. We stratified risks as individual or work related and analyzed the data using IBM SPSS version 25. Chi-square was used to measure the significance of association between categorical variables at 95% confidence interval, regarding a p ≤ 0.05 as significant. Results: The mean age of participants was 40.87 years ± 8.74 (SD), with female predominance (69.8%). Majority were either general nurses or midwives (64.9%) and more than half had practiced for over 6-10 years. The frequency rate of lower back pain was 39.6% (n = 97). Individual factors associated with LBP were; cigarette smoking (X 2 = 33.040; P ≤ 0.001), alcohol consumption (X 2 = 13.581; P ≤ 0.001), age (X 2 = 14.717; P = 0.002), and female gender (X 2 = 4.802; P = 0.028). The work related factors significantly associated with lower back pain were: being a nurse/midwife (X 2 = 9.829; P = 0.007), working in the outpatient department (X 2 = 49.752; P ≤ 0.001), bending (X 2 = 43.912; P ≤ 0.001), lifting (X 2 = 33.279; P < 0.001), over standing (X 2 = 40.096; P ≤ 0.001), being in awkward positions (X 2 = 15.607; P= < 0.001), and pushing patients (X 2 = 21.999; P ≤ 0.001). Conclusion: The frequency rate of low back pain was high amongst health workers and its main associated individual and work related factors could have been prevented. Health workers should strike a balance between caring for their personal back-health and meeting clients' needs while manually handling patients. Ergonomic structuring, job organization, back health care courses and use of assistive equipment could reduce such occupational hazards in our low resourced settings.

Project description:The back is subjected to a great deal of strain in many sports. Up to 20% of all sports injuries involve an injury to the lower back or neck. Repetitive or high impact loads (e.g., running, gymnastics, skiing) and weight loading (e.g., weightlifting) affect the lower back. Rotation of the torso (e.g., golf, tennis) causes damage to both, the lumbar and thoracic spine. The cervical spine is most commonly injured in contact sports (e.g., boxing, football). One of the factors that increases the odds of injuries in athletes is excessive and rapid increases in training loads. In spite of currently emerging evidence on this issue, little is known about the balance between physiological loading on the spine and athletic performance, versus overloading and back pain and/or injury in athletes. This scoping review aims (i) to map the literature that addresses the association between the training load and the occurrence of back pain and/or injury, especially between the Acute:Chronic Workload Ratio (ACWR) and back problems in athletes of individual and team sports, and (ii) to identify gaps in existing literature and propose future research on this topic. A literature search of six electronic databases (i.e., MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, SportDiscus, and CINAHL) was conducted. A total of 48 research articles met the inclusion criteria. Findings identified that fatigue of the trunk muscles induced by excessive loading of the spine is one of the sources of back problems in athletes. In particular, high training volume and repetitive motions are responsible for the high prevalence rates. The most influential are biomechanical and physiological variations underlying the spine, though stress-related psychological factors should also be considered. However, limited evidence exists on the relationship between the ACWR and back pain or non-contact back injuries in athletes from individual and team sports. This may be due to insufficiently specified the acute and chronic time window that varies according to sport-specific schedule of competition and training. More research is therefore warranted to elucidate whether ACWR, among other factors, is able to identify workloads that could increase the risk of back problems in athletes.

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Project description:BackgroundMusculoskeletal symptoms such as neck and shoulder pain/stiffness and low back pain are common health problems in the working population. They are the leading causes of presenteeism (employees being physically present at work but unable to be fully engaged). Recently, digital interventions have begun to be used to manage health but their effectiveness has not yet been fully verified, and adherence to such programs is always a problem.ObjectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the improvements in musculoskeletal symptoms in workers with neck/shoulder stiffness/pain and low back pain after the use of an exercise-based artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted interactive health promotion system that operates through a mobile messaging app (the AI-assisted health program). We expected that this program would support participants' adherence to exercises.MethodsWe conducted a two-armed, randomized, controlled, and unblinded trial in workers with either neck/shoulder stiffness/pain or low back pain or both. We recruited participants with these symptoms through email notifications. The intervention group received the AI-assisted health program, in which the chatbot sent messages to users with the exercise instructions at a fixed time every day through the smartphone's chatting app (LINE) for 12 weeks. The program was fully automated. The control group continued with their usual care routines. We assessed the subjective severity of the neck and shoulder pain/stiffness and low back pain of the participants by using a scoring scale of 1 to 5 for both the intervention group and the control group at baseline and after 12 weeks of intervention by using a web-based form. We used a logistic regression model to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) of the intervention group to achieve to reduce pain scores with those of the control group, and the ORs of the subjective assessment of the improvement of the symptoms compared to the intervention and control groups, which were performed using Stata software (version 16, StataCorp LLC).ResultsWe analyzed 48 participants in the intervention group and 46 participants in the control group. The adherence rate was 92% (44/48) during the intervention. The participants in the intervention group showed significant improvements in the severity of the neck/shoulder pain/stiffness and low back pain compared to those in the control group (OR 6.36, 95% CI 2.57-15.73; P<.001). Based on the subjective assessment of the improvement of the pain/stiffness at 12 weeks, 36 (75%) out of 48 participants in the intervention group and 3 (7%) out of 46 participants in the control group showed improvements (improved, slightly improved) (OR 43.00, 95% CI 11.25-164.28; P<.001).ConclusionsThis study shows that the short exercises provided by the AI-assisted health program improved both neck/shoulder pain/stiffness and low back pain in 12 weeks. Further studies are needed to identify the elements contributing to the successful outcome of the AI-assisted health program.Trial registrationUniversity hospital Medical Information Network-Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN-CTR) 000033894; https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000038307.

Dataset Information

Musculoskeletal Pain in the Neck and Lower Back Regions among PHC Workers: Association between Workload, Mental Disorders, and Strategies to Manage Pain.

Objectives

Method

Results

Publications

Musculoskeletal Pain in the Neck and Lower Back Regions among PHC Workers: Association between Workload, Mental Disorders, and Strategies to Manage Pain.

Similar Datasets

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