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ABSTRACT
Background of Study: Musculoskeletal disorders are health conditions that causes chronic pain and limitation in movement. Musculoskeletal disorders are a leading cause of pain, disability, absenteeism , and decreased productivity. Carrying heavy backpack is a prevalent habit among primary school pupils and may increase the likelihood of musculoskeletal disorders. There have been studies on the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, however, report is lacking on the association between weight of Back Pack, weight of Pupils and the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship among backpack use, the weight of backpack, body weight and musculoskeletal disorders in a population of primary school pupils. Method: This was a cross-sectional study design. Three hundred and ninety seven (397) pupils in primary 1 to primary 6 class in 6 primary schools were selected for this study. An adapted version of the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire was used to obtain information on sociodemographic data, school backpack weight and carriage characteristics, duration of carrying backpack and the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders. Descriptive and inferential statistics of Chi square was used to analyze the data. Alpha level was 0.05 Results: Shoulder pain was the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorders (37.0%) in this study and low back pain was the least prevalent (31.0%). Weight of backpack was not significantly related to the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders but there was a significant relationship with BMI and the prevalence of Musculoskeletal disorders. Conclusion: The prevalence of scoliosis in this study was low. The overall prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among respondents was 62%. Majority of the respondents who had musculoskeletal disorders had shoulder troubles followed by neck problems, with the lowest proportion of respondents with musculoskeletal disorders having low back issues. Musculoskeletal disorders were found to have a significant relationship with BMI in this study and a significant association was found between the method of carrying backpacks and Musculoskeletal Disorders as well as BMI category and carrying the backpack over one shoulder in this study. There was no significant relationship between the weight of backpack and prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders, and between the daily duration of carrying the backpack and prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders hence, both hypotheses are accepted. KEYWORDS
