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Prevalence of low back pain in Port of Santos workers
Marcelo Motta Zanatelli1, Andre Vicente Guimarães1, Guilherme Rocha Storte2
1Professional Master's Program in Health and Environment, Universidade Metropolitana de Santos, Santos, SP, Brazil.
Introduction:
Low back pain is a common symptom among the general population and among manual workers, contributing to high rates of absenteeism and a decrease in overall quality of life.
Objectives:
To determine the prevalence of low back pain in Port of Santos workers, its influence on overall quality of life, physical activity level, and associated absenteeism rate.
Methods:
This cross-sectional prevalence study was based on prospective data collection.
Results:
Eighty-two port workers were interviewed, 97.6% were male, and mean age was 42.9 years. Ethnically, 37.8% reported being brown. Most had completed high school. Longshoreman was the most common occupation, followed by foreman, tallyman, and others. A 44-hour workweek was the most frequent (31.3%), and over 85% of workers reported not working overtime. Most of them were not paid on a production basis. Formal employment, according to Brazilian Labor Law, was 70.7%, and union membership was 64.6%. The mean time working at the port was 11.9 years (standard deviation ± 12.5). Occupational low back pain was reported by 17% of respondents, leading to an absenteeism rate of 19.7%. Physical activities helped improve the feeling of vitality for work performance.
Conclusions:
The prevalence of low back pain among respondents was 17%, not influencing their quality of life, with an absenteeism rate of 19.7%. Doing physical activities was common among respondents.
