Lower back pain and level of disability amongst construction workers

Dor lombar e nível de incapacidade funcional em trabalhadores da construção civil

Abstract

Introduction:

Lower back pain is a symptom that significantly affects people's lives, especially workers whose professional achievements can be limited by this pain.

Objective:

Estimate prevalence of lower back pain and describe the levels of disability amongst construction workers.

Methods:

84 construction workers participated in this study. Each of them was given three questionnaires. The first questionnaire was aimed at identifying sociodemographic variables such as work and lifestyle habits. The second questionnaire was created by Monnerat and Pereira to measure the intensity of lower back pain. The last questionnaire was created by Roland-Morris to measure functional incapacity. The SPSS 18.0 program was used for data analysis. Lower back pain was described with the Mann Whitney U test using the variables of both labor and time. Furthermore, a correlation between lower back pain intensity and functional incapacity was found by Spearman.

Results:

A higher prevalence of lower back pain was found (71.4%) amongst the construction workers especially during laborious activity. Time worked did not affect the prevalence of lower back pain nor did it lead to functional incapacity in workers. Conclusion: Based on all observed data, it was concluded that strenuous labor activity amongst the populace drove lower back pain prevalence.

Keywords:
Prevalence; Lower Back Pain; Disability; Workers