RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK POSTURE AND LOW BACK PAIN AMONG MARKET WOMEN

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorder with a variety of underlying causes, such as an active spinal posture. AIM: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of LBP and the relationship between work posture and low back pain among market women in Benin City. METHODS: This was a cross sectional study consisting of 201 market women were selected from two markets. Purposive sampling was used to select the market places. Standard Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire was used for the part of low back pain was used to the prevalence and occurrence of low back pain. The Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) tool was used to evaluate Risk of musculoskeletal disorders associated with specific work task. Inferential statistics of Chi square and Spearman’s Rank Correlation was used to analyze data. Alpha was set at p= 0.05. RESULTS: Approximately 38.8% of the participants showed medium risk, 29.9% high risk and 29.4% very high risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The mean REBA score was 5.85 ± (1.77) and there was a significant relationship between posture and LBP (rho=0.741; p=0.05). The most posture adopted by the participants was also significantly associated with LBP (rho=0.184; p=0.001). CONCLUSION: There is high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among market women in Benin City. Work Postures such as bending and lifting, which are some of the most adopted postures, show a high risk of developing low back pain. Prolong sitting significantly shows a negative effect on low back. Keywords: Posture, work posture, market women and low back pain.