Cervical and back pain syndrome in port workers.

Abstract

The surveyed group consisted of 338 port workers including 136 stevedores, 128 operators of mechanized equipment and 74 hoistmen. 233 people (68.9%) complained of cervical and back pain. In relation to the size of the groups examined, the pain was reported by 84.6% stevedores, 60.8% hoistmen and 57.0% operators. On the basis of the clinical course, the types of the pains were determined in stevedores to be: skeletogenic--in 41.8% of them, neurogenic--25.4%, angiogenic--4.5% and mixed within the cervical segment of the spine--28.3%. The back pain in the group of stevedores was classified as high ischialgia--in 65.7%, low ischialgia--in 24.6% and lumbar pain and sacralgia--in 9.7% of cases. In hoistmen and operators, lumbagia and sacralgia were two times more frequent than in stevedores. Sick leave in the subjects examined in the course of the seven-year observation totalled 18,452 days, in that number 7646 days in connection with diseases of the muscular-skeletal system, and 5150 days by problem in the spine. In operators and hoistmen the absence caused by these diseases was proportionally two times lower than in stevedores.