FREQUENCY OF WORK-RELATED BACK PAIN AMONG PHYSIOTHERAPISTS PRACTICING IN LAHORE

Background: Musculoskeletal disorders are common among health care providers who use manual skills. Physiotherapists are subjected to severe stresses throughout their course of practice. All techniques of physiotherapy involve much use of back. Therefore, back is likely to be under strain.

Objective: The objective of study was to find the frequency of work-related Back pain among physiotherapists practicing in Lahore.

Methods: It was a Cross sectional study design. Data was collected from 100 physical therapists. Data was collected through questionnaire. Data was entered and analyzed through SPSS version 20.0. All qualitative data was shown in the form of mean and standard deviation. Data was presented with the help of charts, graphs and tables.

Result: The results showed the results of different parameters as for Age [as at last birthday] mean value was 33.6552 and [SD±10.57240], for Hours per Week [HPW] Spent in Direct Patient Care in Last year as Part of Physiotherapy Practice the, mean value was 26.1724 and [SD±15.86534] and for Numeric Pain Rating Scale the mean value was 4.0776 and [SD±1.57784].

Conclusion: There was found high frequency of work-related pain in back among physical therapists in Lahore. Most of therapists do preventive, compensative and corrective measure for coping highly prevalent back pain including pausing, rest intervals after sessions and modifying technique to some extent.

Keywords: Back Pain, Frequency, Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders, Physical Therapy