Intensity and level of disability of neck pain among undergraduate physical therapy students: A Cross Sectional Study

A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Neck pain is characterized by pain in the posterior-inferior part of the occiput and neck pain is become increasingly common in individuals.

Objective: To find out the intensity and level of disability of neck pain among undergraduate physical therapy students of Agile Institute of Rehabilitation Sciences because medical students are at high-risk group of developing neck pain.

Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study. We included 145 students with neck pain, from 1st year to final year, both male and female in age 18-30 years. The data was collected by using convenient sampling technique. The pain was measured using Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) and Neck Disability Index (NDI) was used to classify the severity of disability of their neck. The data was entered in SPSS version 25 for analysis. The frequency tables and graphs were used to represent the results. 

Results: In this study 145 participants were included, out of all 108(74.5%) were females and 37(25.5%) were males, with mean age 24.75+5.25 years. This study shows that 74(51.0%) participants had mild pain, 61(42.1%) had moderate pain and 10(6.9%) participants had worse pain. The categories of NDI were mild among 85.5%, 8.3 % were in moderate and 6.2% were in sever disability category.

Conclusion: According to the findings, undergraduate students have mild pain and mild disability according to NPRS and NDI respectively.

Keywords:

Neck pain, Neck Disability Index, Numeric Pain Rating scale, Undergraduate, Physical Therapy students