Musculoskeletal Pain among Rural Homemakers and their Health Seeking Behaviors

Background: Homemakers use their time & strengths to provide service to make their house a home. This routine and compulsory household maintenance task often leads them to musculoskeletal pain (MSP).

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the areas of musculoskeletal pain in different parts of the body as a result of household work among rural homemakers in Bangladesh and in this case to detect their health-seeking behaviors.

Materials and Methods: Three hundred and forty one randomly selected married homemakers’ living in the rural area of Barishal division of Bangladesh who has experienced any type of musculoskeletal pain at least once in life due to household work participated in this cross sectional study. Data were collected by pretested semi-structured questionnaire through face to face interview.

Results: The one year pattern of MSP among respondents were lower back (80.46%), followed by knee (24.4%), neck (19.13%), upper-back (11.3%), shoulder (5.3%), hips/thighs (5.46%), ankle/feet (4.8%), wrist/hand (4.4%), and elbow (3.4%). Lower back pain had an association with lifting heavy objects, number of children, educational qualification, age and awkward/faulty postures (p<0.05). Total working experiences more than 10 years was associated with upper back pain (p<0.05).Further, pain in the wrist/hand and knee (P <0.05) was linked with awkward position and spending more than 8 hours a day doing homework. In addition, there was a relationship between repetitive work and wrist/hand pain (p<0.05). In contrast, three-fourth received treatment for their pain. Of these, 54.9% sought treatment from the para-professional health service providers.

This study shows that housework exposed musculoskeletal pain on the different sites of the body. Although sufferers sought treatment in this regard, it is necessary to improve policies & intervention for reducing possible risks of musculoskeletal pain among homemakers.

Keywords: Musculoskeletal pain; health seeking behavior; Rural homemaker