Brief Report
The occurrence of the cervical pain syndromes in parents of children with physical disability in the population of Poland

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Abstract

Background

Pain in the cervical spine area is one of the main health problems of inhabitants of Western Europe. The necessity of parents' taking care of a child with physical disability is connected with parents' exposure to the factors affecting the risk of occurrence of pain in the cervical spine.

Objective

The objective of this study was to analyze whether there are differences in the occurrence of cervical spine pain between the group of parents of children with physical disability and parents of children without a disability.

Method

The research included a group of parents of school-aged children with physical disability (n = 47) and a group of parents of children without disability (n = 69), aged between 29 and 60 years from the Silesian Voivodeship (Poland). The people taking part in the research were asked to complete two questionnaires: Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for the cervical spine and Neck Disability Index (NDI) questionnaire. Means, standard deviations, and ranges to compare scores across groups were calculated.

Results

The mean VAS score among parents of children with physical disability was 4.22 (SD = 3.23) compared to 2.16 (SD = 2.31; p < .001) among parents of children without physical disability. Similarly, mean NDI scores were 19.6 (SD = 15.12) and 9.68 (SD = 8.84; p < .001), respectively.

Conclusions

The parents of children with physical disability are to a greater extent exposed to the occurrence of cervical spine pain. Therefore, suitable training as regards ergonomics, especially during lifting, transferring and transporting children might be beneficial to these parents.

Section snippets

Participants

The research was carried out in accordance with the principles of Declaration of Helsinki. The research was conducted on a basis of a questionnaire. According to Polish law, in such cases the approval of the bioethics committee is not required.

The research was carried out in Silesian voivodeship (Poland), in 5 randomly chosen ordinary schools (in case of children without a disability) and in 5 randomly chosen schools for children with physical disability. The parents were asked to fill in

Results

The examination of the intensity of cervical spine pain according to VAS scale and NDI questionnaire showed a statistically significant difference (p < .001) between the group G1 and G2 (Table 2). There was a strong positive correlation (rs > .70) (Spearman's rank correlation) between the results obtained by means of both research tools.

The participants were additionally divided into groups depending on the results obtained from the NDI questionnaire. In this way, the degree of participants'

Discussion

The results of the examination may indicate that the responsibilities of parents taking care of a child with physical disability have a detrimental association leading to cervical spine pain complaints.

The research carried out by Andersen et al14 compares child care performed by the parents of children with disability and the work of medical service workers. The authors stated that taking care of a patient (in this case one's own child with disability) is a type of physical burden and that it

Conclusions

  • 1.

    The parents of children with physical disability are to a greater extent exposed to cervical spine pain.

  • 2.

    There is a need to conduct further, more detailed research on the influence of taking care of a child with disability on the occurrence of cervical spine pain. It should consider the influence of the remaining environmental factors i.e., the family characteristics (complete or single-parent family, number of children in family, number of children being under the parents supervision, financial

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  • The authors declare no conflicts of interest connected with this paper.

    There were no other funding sources than our home University.

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