Fatores associados aos sintomas osteomusculares em estudantes de fisioterapia durante a pandemia pela Covid-19

Abstract

The report of musculoskeletal symptoms is frequent among students of health courses, such as physical therapy. The COVID-19 pandemic may have worsened this problem, due to changes in people¿s lifestyle. Understanding the factors that can influence these symptoms is important to direct curative and preventive actions, especially in the context of the pandemic. This dissertation was built in an alternative format and consists of a manuscript that aimed to analyze the factors associated with musculoskeletal symptoms in physical therapy students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analytical cross-sectional study, approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás (approval no. 4,745,232), conducted in a virtual environment, with 247 physical therapy students in Brazil. An online form was made available, using the Snowball Sampling method, containing the Free and Informed Consent Form, a sociodemographic and academic profile questionnaire, and the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ). The relationship between the number of musculoskeletal symptoms identified in the QNSO and the sociodemographic and academic profile of the students was verified using Student¿s t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), followed by Tukey test. Finally, a multivariate model of multiple linear regression was constructed using the Stepwise method. The significance level adopted was 5%. The sampling effect (f 2) was calculated from the coefficient of determination (r 2) generated in the Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, with a significance level of 0.05, confidence interval of 0.95, sample power of 0.80 and sample effect of 0.16. The minimum estimate was a sample of 119 students. The students had a mean age of 22.89±4.60 years old and most were female (79.4%) and not working (72.5%). Less than half reported good sleep quality (47.8%) and physical activity practice (46.6%). Most students were from private institutions (61.9%) and attended between the 7th and 10th period (45.7%). The prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in the last 12 months in physical therapy students was 94.3%, the most reported region was the neck (68.8%) and the number of musculoskeletal symptoms had an average of 3.96±2.09. Being a female student (p<0.01), not working (p=0.04), poor and very poor sleep quality (p<0.01), public institution (p=0.04), advanced period in the course (p<0.01) and studying in a lying position (p=0.04) were predictive variables of the number of musculoskeletal symptoms in the last 12 months. Health promotion can improve the learning process and professional training. These findings can help in the planning of strategies for the prevention and reduction of musculoskeletal symptoms in physical therapy students, such as updating the curriculum, adapting the academic environment considering the new reality of technology use that was established with the pandemic and encouraging a healthy lifestyle