Abstract:
Background: Universally, work-related illness and injury continue to be of great concern because it is the principal cause of surge in work productivity. It is estimated to cost nearly 2.8 trillion USD (4%) of annual GDP due to sickness absence, lost workday, worker’s compensation and daily production interruption. Amongst these work-related illness and injuries, musculoskeletal pain is rife. It is projected to constitute about 32% of the work-related injuries. Musculoskeletal pain affects most body parts of the individual. It may affect the neck, shoulders, back, thighs, elbow, wrists or even the legs. Leading amongst these is the Low back pain accounting for over 60% of all musculoskeletal pain. The Low back pain is almost ubiquitous amongst all classes of professionals.
Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional study design with a quantitative approach to determine the factors influencing the risk of developing low back pain amongst auto mechanics. Participants were selected using Multistage random sampling. Fisher’s exact test and Logistic regression were employed to test association. A p-value<0.05 was considered significant.
Results: The total number of Auto Mechanics included in this study was 192. The characteristics of the Auto mechanics indicated that nearly, 80% of the respondents were Apprentices, 11.5% were Masters, and the remaining 9.9% were Coworkers. In addition, the attainable highest level of education at the time of participation revealed 30.2% of them had no formal education, 40.1% had up to primary education, 24.5% had a secondary level of education and about 5.2% had tertiary education. The prevalence of Low Back Pain amongst the Auto mechanics at Korle Gonno and Mamprobi communities was found to be high with a proportion of 92.1%. However, the Level of Back Pain intensity shows that 21.9% of respondents had Minimal disability, 62.0% had Moderate disability, and 9.4% had severe disability, while 6.8% of the participants were crippled. Assessing the Level of Knowledge of the Auto Mechanics on body mechanic techniques, 4.2% of the Mechanics had poor knowledge, 74.5% had adequate knowledge, while 21.3% had excellent knowledge on the body mechanic technique. From the study, it was realized that factors influencing the risk of developing low back pain included Job Support (AOR=17.34; 95% CI =1.10–273.16). Having high knowledge (AOR=0.06; 95%CI=0.01 – 0.48). Job Position, such as being an apprentice, was found to be statistically associated with low back pain (AOR= 0.13; 95 % CI=0.04–0.86).
Conclusion: The prevalence of Low back pain amongst Auto mechanics at Korle Gonno and Mamprobi was high with the majority of the mechanics experiencing moderate disability. Nevertheless, most of the Auto mechanics had adequate knowledge of body mechanic techniques. Job support, Job Position and Knowledge were found to influence Low back pain amongst Auto mechanics at Korle Gonno and Mamprobi communities.
