Abstract
Background
Lower back pain is one of the most common occupational health problems and accounts for a large number of worker’s compensation days and disability in modern industrialised societies. It to affect more workers and results in higher costs to industry than any other musculoskeletal disorders. Traditionally, the most widely investigated occupational risk factors for LBP have been biomechanical demands of the job and in recent years, psychosocial characteristics of work have also been investigated as potential risk factors for LBP. Occupational risk factors like prolonged driving/machine operation, driver’s seat condition and the lifestyle factor as a result of obesity are known characteristics in driving professions. The aim of this study was to examine risk factors associated with lower back pain (LBP) in drivers/operators of articulated vehicles (DAVs), in Ngqura Container Terminal, Eastern Cape.
Methods
This was a cross sectional study of 579 participants at the Ngqura Container Terminal, in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape. The participants were categorised as DAVs 350 (60.40%) and non-DAVs 229 (39.60%). DAV Participants were further categorised into vehicle driver (52.3%) equipment operators (47.4%) and forklift drivers (0.3%). Non-DAVs category constituted of Administrators, Port Workers and the Other category. Data was collected using interviews based on a structured questionnaire and the data was entered cleaned and entered into a software for different types of analysis. The crude odds ratios were used to calculate adjusted odds ratios using multivariate logistic regression in SPSS. Frequencies and percentages were identified using the descriptive statistical analysis. The crude odds ratios were calculated using SPSS. The multivariate logistic regression was used to get the adjusted odds ratios to obtain occupational risk factors associated with lower back pain. Confidence intervals were used to obtain the statistical significance in the within the variables. The data was then presented using figures and tables.
Results
Overall, 350 (60.4%) out of 579 participants belonged to the DAVs category. Male participants were significantly more likely to be DAVs (AOR; 95%CI). Most of the DAV drivers were Black African, (81.43%) Being Black African was significantly more likely to be a DAV (AOR; 95%CI). The majority of DAV drivers were overweight to obese as these categories combined made up 82.86% of the BMI category. The was a significant difference at the years of working at NCT variable between the DAVs and non-DAVs as illustrated by the p value being <0.0005. On the seat related items, none of the items were found to be significantly more likely to cause lower back pain to DAVs. With the distribution of DAVs and non-DAVs by difficulty of activities several activities were found to be significant.
Conclusions
In my study as, race, gender, years of driving vehicles or operating the machines, income and obesity certainly played a large role in lower back pain. As can be seen therefore the risk factors for lower back pain are the males of coloured and the back race, working at Ngqura Container terminal for a period of 5 years to more than 10 years, earning between R15 000 to R30 000 and are obese.
Given these above-mentioned risk factors, I recommend that all employees who are male and of coloured and black race DAVs, have been working for 5 years to more than 10 years at Ngqura Container Terminal, earning between R15 000 to R30 000 and obese should have their vehicles/machines regularly maintained and repaired. They should be educated and trained regularly on safety and on lifestyle modifications for obesity.
Keywords: Lower Back Pain, Body Mass Index, Prolonged Driving, Driver’s Seat Condition, DAVs and non-DAVs.