Prevalence of Non-Specific Neck Pain Associated with Psychological Motives Among Young Adults During Problematic E-Learning in COVID-19

Abstract

Non-specific neck pain can be described as an acute or chronic cervical and shoulder girdle complication arising from occiput of skull to the spine of scapula that may radiate down to the arms, with or without minimizing cervical range of motion, not associated with history of any infection or fracture.

Objective: The objective of the study is to observe the incidence of nonspecific neck pain and its association with anxiety and depression among young adults during problematic online education. Previous literature showed a significant association of anxiety and depressive disorder with high morbidity in respondents with non-specific neck pain. But very few studies found to highlight the relation of psychological stress with neck discomfort. This research focuses on said prevalence of non-specific neck ailment in relation to anxiety and depression among young students of Government College University Faisalabad during
problematic online learning.

Methods:
The study framework adopted was a cross-sectional survey. The sample calculated was 103 depending on previous researches. Subjects were taken from Government College University Faisalabad. A simple random sampling approach was
utilized to gather the sample. The self-made questionnaire was used as data collection tool. Data analysis and interpretations was done by using SPSS version 16.0.

Results:
N=103 students including n=21(20.4%) males and n=82(79.6%) females had neck pain because of various psychological factors, such as depression and anxiety. Individuals had mild, moderate and
severe pain on pain scale were (37.9%) (22.3%) and (8.7%) respectively with mean and Std. deviation (2.1262±0.9769). Outcomes were reported in the form of frequency distribution bar charts. Results concluded that 74% young adults reported neck pain due to anxiety and depression. The chi-square test parameters defined that there is significant relation of neck
pain with anxiety (p = 0.001) and no significant association of neck pain with depression (p = 0.5) during problematic online learning.

Conclusion:
The inferences of this review indicated that anxiety causes more pain in neck region as compared to depression among young students during problematic e-learning. The study will help to raise the point of management of stressful situations in a better way to avoid the non-specific neck pain.