Frecuencia del sedentarismo y sus consecuencias en docentes de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas

Abstract

Introduction: A sedentary lifestyle is characterized by physical inactivity or lack of exercise. When a person spends most of the day sitting without doing physical activity, they are considered sedentary. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), inactivity is one of the most important public health problems since it affects millions of people around the world and it is estimated that 60% of the world's population does not carry out any physical activity necessary to obtain health benefits.
Objectives: The general objective of this study was to analyze the frequency of sedentary lifestyles in teachers of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asunción. Sociodemographic factors such as sex, age range, and marital status of the respondents were determined, as well as the percentage of teachers who perform physical activity and the frequency of physical activity if they perform it. The presence of muscle, joint, or both pain experienced by the teachers, the frequency of pain, whether muscle or joint, in case of presenting said pain and the severity of the pain was estimated using the Visual Analog Scale of pain (VAS), in addition, the areas most affected by presenting joint and/or muscle pain, and finally the number of daily hours worked by the teachers of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asunción was also revealed.
Materials: The study was observational, descriptive and cross-sectional based on the results of a survey conducted by Google Forms to 51 teachers from the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of Asunción.
Results: Most of the respondents were female, the age range is between 36 and 45 years of age and the majority are single. It should be noted that 68.6% of teachers perform physical activity. The frequency of physical activity carried out by teachers is 1 to 2 times a week. Regarding the presence of pain, 41.2% reported not feeling any pain, but 23.7% felt muscle pain and 21.6% felt muscle and joint pain. Teachers who have muscle pain experience this pain 1 to 2 times a month according to the highest percentage (46.4%) but 10.7% of teachers experience muscle pain every day with a range of pain severity from 1 to 7 degrees of pain and the most affected area is the back region and teachers who present joint pain also experience said pain 1 to 2 times a month with a percentage of 50% but also 20.8% experience joint pain every day with a severity range of 1 to 8 degrees of pain, the area most affected with joint pain being the knee region and lastly, the majority of teachers work more than 6 hours a day.
Conclusions: Through the study, sociodemographic information (sex, age, marital status) was obtained about the population of teachers at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, where the female sex predominated, the majority of teachers were between 36 and 45 years old and most were single. The presence of physical activity was evaluated and the frequency of physical activity was estimated, where 30% of teachers surveyed do not carry out any physical activity and those who do carry out physical activity have a frequency of 1 to 2 times a month. The presence of muscle pain was established in 23.5% and the presence of joint pain in 13.7% and thus there are also 21.6% of teachers who present both pains, it was possible to describe the frequency of both muscle and joint pain where teachers present muscle pain and/or or joint 1 to 2 times a month, it was also possible to estimate the degree of severity of muscle pain with a pain level of 1 to 7 and the degree of joint pain in 1 to 8. It was also possible to reveal the number of daily hours they work those surveyed and exceeded 6 hours of work per day by 88.2%.