Low back pain and risk factors for low back pain in car drivers
The cause of low back pain in populations of professional drivers is uncertain. A literature reviewrevealed factors that seem to be associated with low back pain (e.g. physical factors: exposure towhole body-vibration, prolonged sitting posture, frequent lifting, pushing and pulling, lack of physicalfitness; psychosocial factors: job satisfaction or stress; individual factors: age, gender,anthropometrics, tobacco, alcohol consumption, etc.).This thesis investigates the occurrence of back pain in professional car drivers – a group found tobe not focussed upon in previous epidemiological studies. The thesis seeks to advanceunderstanding of response relationships between risk factors and low back pain in populations ofcar drivers (209 taxi drivers and 365 police drivers) and 485 non-drivers. A longitudinal study withcross-sectional baseline combined with field measurement of driving in selected vehicles wasperformed to investigate the occurrence of musculoskeletal problems (mainly low back pain) andthe relationship between risk factors and low back pain experienced for at least one day during thepast 12 months in the two populations of professional drivers (taxi drivers and police drivers) andprofessional non-drivers.The cross-sectional baseline of the longitudinal study revealed that 45% (38.3-51.7%) of taxidrivers, 53% (48-58.6%)of police drivers and 46% (41-50.1%) of police non-drivers reported lowback pain for at least one day during the past 12-months (p = 0.09). The prevalence of low backpain in the non-driving population of police employees fell within prevalence range reported byprofessional car drivers in this study and in previous epidemiological studies. The cross-sectionalstudy revealed risk factors associated with the prevalence of low back pain (i.e., stature, previousphysical demands, increased psychosomatic distress, daily and cumulative driving in taxi drivers;age, lifting, bending, increase psychosomatic distress in police drivers; stature, bending, increasedpsychosomatic distress in police non-drivers).Measurements of whole-body vibration in selected taxi and police vehicles revealed frequencyweightedaccelerations in the dominant vibration direction (i.e., z-axis) to be 0.47 ms-2 r.m.s. in taxivehicles and 0.58 ms-2 r.m.s. in police vehicles.A study of cumulative exposure to whole-body vibration in a group of taxi drivers pointed to apossible overestimation of their self-estimated duration of vibration exposure by 31% on average.The longitudinal study revealed a lower incidence of low back pain in taxi drivers than in bothpolice drivers and police non-drivers (p = 0.02). The difference might be attributed to a differentapproach to low back pain in taxi drivers who lose income if unable to work. An alternativeexplanation for increased low back pain among police employees could be that taxi drivers with lowback pain leave their profession and were excluded from the follow-up study – a healthy workereffect.The longitudinal study revealed that increased psychosomatic distress was a risk factorassociated with the development of new episodes of low back pain in all three of the studiedpopulations (i.e. taxi drivers and police drivers and non-drivers).In police drivers, increased daily duration of driving was a risk factor for the development of lowback pain. Although the results point to increased incidence of low back pain with increasingduration of daily driving, non-drivers were at a similar risk of developing of low back pain. Plausibleexplanations for this finding include ergonomic factors that were present for both the drivers and thenon-drivers (e.g., the duration of sitting or duration in a constrained posture) and the presence ofother risk factors not investigated in the study but associated with increased incidence of low backpain in non-drivers.
Year of publication: |
2008-05
|
---|---|
Authors: | Gallais, Lenka |
Subject: | HD Industries. Land use. Labor | RC Internal medicine | TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics |
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