Abstract

Musculoskeletal pain are common problems for nursing and medicine students especially in developing countries. The study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of back and upper body musculoskeletal pain among nursing and medicine students at the University of Gondar. Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted. Stratified simple random sampling technique and structured self-administered questionnaires were used for data collection. All questionnaires were entered into EPI™ version-7 then exported to SPSS™ version-20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regressions were employed to ensure further significance with subsequent use of odds ratio to show the strength of the association with 95% (CIs). Magnitude of musculoskeletal pain in different body parts was 54% back pain and 36.7% neck pain. Sex difference (AOR: 0.607, 95% CI [0.062, 0.935]), alcohol consumption (AOR: 1.821, 95% CI [1.002, 4.130]), and sufficient rest break (AOR: 0.494, 95% CI [0.044, 4.202]) has significant association to back pain. Also, department (AOR: 3.399, 95% CI [1.340, 3.418]), year of study (AOR: 1.912, 95% CI [1.001, 5.349]) and sleep hours per day (AOR: 1.670, 95% CI [1.507, 4.801]) have significantly associated with neck pain. The overall magnitude of back pain and neck pain in medicine and nursing students were high. Therefore, interventions on organizational factors as well as personal factors should be done to reduce the burden of lower back and upper body musculoskeletal disorders.

Key words: Back pain, neck pain, musculoskeletal pain, upper body, university students.