Musculoskeletal pain in health professionals at the end of their studies and 1 year after entry into the profession: a multi-center longitudinal questionnaire study from Switzerland

Thomas Bucher; Thomas Volken; Fabian Pfeiffer; René Schaffert

doi:10.1186/s12891-023-06635-z

Musculoskeletal pain in health professionals at the end of their studies and 1 year after entry into the profession: a multi-center longitudinal questionnaire study from Switzerland

BMC Musculoskelet Disord. 2023 Jun 23;24(1):518. doi: 10.1186/s12891-023-06635-z.

Authors

Thomas Bucher¹, Thomas Volken², Fabian Pfeiffer², René Schaffert²

Affiliations

¹ Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, School of Health Sciences, Katharina-Sulzer-Platz 9, CH-8400, Winterthur, Switzerland. buct@zhaw.ch.
² Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, School of Health Sciences, Katharina-Sulzer-Platz 9, CH-8400, Winterthur, Switzerland.

Abstract

Background: Musculoskeletal pain, especially back pain, is common among health care professionals (HP). For prevention purposes, it is important to know whether HP develop their symptoms before or after entering the health care workforce. Cross-sectional studies among HP cannot answer this question. This follow-up study measures the prevalence and individual course of musculoskeletal pain among full-time HP students at the end of their studies and one year after entering the health care workforce.

Method: Self-reported one-year prevalence for low back pain, neck/shoulder pain, pain in arms/hands, and pain in legs/feet was collected at two timepoints from 1046 participating HP using an online questionnaire. Participants were asked whether their musculoskeletal pain was related to study or work conditions. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models of the binomial family with log link were used to estimate adjusted prevalence and corresponding normal based 95% confidence intervals were derived using the bootstrap method with 1000 replications.

Results: The prevalence of low back pain as well as neck and shoulder pain was very high at baseline and follow-up in all full-time students and later HP. Prevalence for pain in arms/hands, legs/feet was low and there were significant differences between the professions. HP clearly associated their low back pain and neck/shoulder pain with study and work conditions; HP strongly associated pain in arms/hands, legs/feet only with work conditions.

Conclusion: Many HP suffer from back/neck/shoulder pain already as students before starting their professional career. The prevention of back/neck/shoulder pain must be part of the education of all health professions at universities. As an example of best practice, universities should incorporate ergonomic measures and exercises into the daily routine of training health professionals. The effects of physically demanding professional tasks on the upper and lower extremities need to be investigated in further studies to take preventive measures.

Keywords: Back; Foot; Hand; Health professionals; Longitudinal; Musculoskeletal pain; Neck.

Publication types

Multicenter Study

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Follow-Up Studies
Health Personnel
Humans
Low Back Pain* / epidemiology
Musculoskeletal Pain* / diagnosis
Musculoskeletal Pain* / epidemiology
Shoulder Pain / diagnosis
Shoulder Pain / epidemiology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Switzerland / epidemiology