Prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in truck drivers and associated factors

Background:professional drivers can be subject to occupational musculoskeletal problems.Objective:to estimate the prevalence of musculoskeletal spine pain among truck drivers and identify the associated factors in a 12 month period prior to the research.Method:a cross-sectional study conducted in 2007 involving all 460 male truck drivers from a freight company. Information on sociodemographic, occupational and health factors was collected through a questionnaire. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were carried out to determine the association between musculoskeletal spine pain and the investigated factors.Results:prevalence of musculoskeletal pain was 53.5%, the highest being related to the spine column (38.5%) and the lumbar spine (28%). Factors associated with spine pain were: bad sleeping, tension resulting from fear of being attacked, killed, becoming ill or getting involved in accidents, as well as stress, tension and fatigue caused by discomfort.Conclusion:high prevalence of lumbar spine pain in the studied population was associated with external stressors, including fear of accidents and robberies, as well as those directly related to work organization such as fatigue resulting from lack of pauses and restrictions on sleeping hours, which leads to poor sleep quality.