F3-2　Neck Pain and Physical Fitness among Office Workers

Abstract

Neck pain is one of main health problems of office workers. They work with computers in the same position for long period of time. Previous studies show the prevalence of neck pain (45.5%) in office workers. This can lead to direct and indirect costs of health care. It is essential to develop predictors for preventing people from neck pain. Previous studies show that musculoskeletal disorders are related to physical fitness level. Many factors in physical fitness can predict the incident of musculoskeletal disorders.There is still few studies which are specific to neck pain and physical fitness. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate the relation between physical fitness level and prevalence of neck pain in office workers. A preliminary cross-sectional survey study included office workers who work in Faculty of physical therapy, Mahidol University. Participants were advertised with information and advantages of the study. The total of participants in this study were 18 office workers (10 females and 8 males). The test-retest reliability (ICC) of physical fitness tests were between 0.52-0.99. Physical fitness of participants were measured in five domains including 1) range of motion, 2) neck endurance, 3) strengthening of deep neck flexor muscle, 4) grip strength and 5) cardiorespiratory fitness by using cervical range of motion goniometer, neck flexor endurance test, neck flexor strength test by a pressure biofeedback, a hand grip dynamometer and three minutes step test, respectively. Compared the results which norms, subjects can be classified into normal group and below normal group. The Thai version of the modified neck disability index was used for examine the prevalence of neck pain. The neck disability scores were calculated, participants with the score more than 20% of full score were included in neck pain group. Statistic analysis analyzed by SPSS version 20.0. Intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated for test-retest reliability. Descriptive statistics showed that neck strength, neck endurance, cardiorespiratory fitness and range of neck flexion in participants with normal physical fitness level tend to have less prevalence of neck pain than that of participants with below normal physical fitness level.