Abstract :
Background and objective of the study : Among all the muscular skeletal disorders that affect students, cervicalgia is one of the worst, and its persistence has always been a cause of worry. The younger individuals, though the persistent neck pain is very rare, yet there is a need to identify those factors that lead to its chronicity, so that it can be prevented.
Materials and Methods: A prospective study was carried out on 390 healthy students belonging to the medical and paramedical undergraduate courses of two different medical colleges in a smart city. Study was carried over a period of 5 years from the period of December 2014 to December 2019.
The study included all the students who consented to the study and where willing to participate in that. All the students were given a questionnaire at the beginning of the study and data was collected at the end of 4 months, 8 months and 12 months. In those patients where diagnosis having persistent neck pain, where were completely evaluated in order to find out the possible risk factors that can be associated with the persistence of neck pain.
Results and Observations : In the study we recruited 300 students from two medical colleges in the city of Mangalore Dakshina Kannada, smart City e in South India. In these students 200 where students from medical College 50 students from the physiotherapy College and another 50 students from allied sciences that included radiography and laboratory technicians. It was observed that. At the end of 1 year following recruitment, 61% of the individuals had complaints of neck pain. Of which on follow up 21% has persistent neck pain. Of the 61% that is 183 cases who complained of neck pain at 1 year only 120 cases, that is 40% at persistence in the end of second year.
Among these 120 cases, 99 cases had use of computer for more than 12 hours a day or the use of mobile phones specially while sleeping at night for more than 4-5 hours for a day. Of those who are using the computer they further analysed for the position of the screen and the mouse, 81 of the 99 cases reported that they used it as suitable to them, without the proper ergonomics.
It was noted that the most severe pain was in the second year following which they did adjustments in the posture which reduce the severity of pain. Also so said that pain use to appear after working on the computer for more than 2 hours in those who had computer related neck pain comma and if the mobile phone was used in the sleeping posture for more than an hour it lead to neck pain. We also noted that the use of computer for entertainment purposes had a higher incidence than those who used for educational purposes. Those who used a screen time on mobile phone more during the night time had a higher incidence
of neck pain than those who used most screen time during the day time.
Conclusion : In the study we concluded that the incidence of neck pain is higher among undergraduate students especially during the initial years of the course full stop the use of assisted learning modalities like computers and mobile phones have increased the incidence of neck pain among young. Though there is still and uncertainty about the factors that can cause neck pain in young and cannot be pointed out with accurate precision, it is what vi to considered to reduce the using of additional assisted modalities for both entertainment and education so that the morbidity that is associated with neck pain is reduced especially on the long-term
Keyword :
Persistence cervicalgia, Students, Risk factors.