Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 15;59(242):983-986.
doi: 10.31729/jnma.7084.

Back Pain among COVID-19 Positive Health Care Workers in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Affiliations

Back Pain among COVID-19 Positive Health Care Workers in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Nepal: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Shriraj Shrestha et al. JNMA J Nepal Med Assoc. .

Abstract

Introduction: The world has been threatened with the emergence of the Novel Corona Virus straining the health care system and creating a global pandemic. This is not the first pandemic, and it certainly will not be the last to affect humanity. As the medical community is exposed to these highly contagious new diseases with arrays of symptoms like fever, cough, shortness of breath, anosmia, insomnia, and myalgia. Back pain can also be considered as one of the symptoms of COVID-19 infection. Therefore, this study aimed to find out the prevalence of back pain among the Health care workers who were tested positive for COVID-19 by the end of their isolation period.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was done from April 2021 to June 2021 in KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Imadol, Lalitpur, Nepal, after receiving ethical approval from the Institutional Review Committee (Registration number: 2077/078/57). Convenience sampling was done. Data collection and entry were done in Microsoft excel, point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and proportion for binary data.

Results: Out of 156 COVID-19 positive patients, the prevalence of back pain was seen among 64 (41%) patients (95% Confidence Interval= 42.23-57.75). Among them 21 (32.8%) were males and 43 (67.2%) were females. Likewise, the minimum age was 20 years and the maximum was 68 years with a mean of 33.5±10.28.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that a high proportion of healthcare workers were suffering from back pain and the findings are similar to the data from other international studies.

Keywords: back pain; COVID-19; health care workers..

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. VAS during and after being infected with COVID (n= 64).

References

    1. Mhango M, Dzobo M, Chitungo I, Dzinamarira T. COVID-19 Risk Factors Among Health Workers: A Rapid Review. Saf Health Work. 2020 Sep;11(3):262–5. doi: 10.1016/j.shaw.2020.06.001. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization, Institutional Repository for Information Sharing. Health workers exposure risk assessment and management in the context of COVID-19 virus: interim guidance, 4 March 2020 [Internet]. Geneva (CH): World Health Organization, Institutional Repository for Information Sharing; 2020. Mar 4, https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/331340 Available from:
    1. Richman DD, Whitley RJ, Hayden FG, editors. Clinical Virology. 4th. Washington (US): ASM Press; 2016. p. 1489.https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Clinical+Virology%2C+4th+Edition-p-978168367... Available from:
    1. Zhu J, Ji P, Pang J, Zhong Z, Li H, He C, et al. Clinical characteristics of 3062 COVID-19 patients: A meta-analysis. J Med Virol. 2020 Oct;92(10):1902–14. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25884. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kelly AM. The minimum clinically significant difference in visual analogue scale pain score does not differ with severity of pain. Emerg Med J. 2001 May;18(3):205–7. doi: 10.1136/emj.18.3.205. - DOI - PMC - PubMed