Common musculoskeletal problems faced by college-going students and professionals owing to work from home during COVID-19 lockdown and awareness of physiotherapy among them.

Background: Outbreak of Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, government of India announced a nationwide lock down. Thus, Students and working professionals were compelled to work from home, acquiring poor posture and prolonged working hours leading to several musculoskeletal problems with various associated symptoms. Objective: The objective of present study is determining the effects of work from home, their working hours and predominantly attained posture on their musculoskeletal health and broadly to approximate the awareness regarding need and importance of physiotherapy among them. Method and Materials: This study is a cross-sectional study. 320 college going individuals and work professionals of age group between 17 years and 30 years participated in an online survey with their voluntary consent. The questionnaire was directed using a link shared on social media applications and collected responses of each participant and were analyzed by using Google Form and IBM SPSS Statistics version 26 was used to determine the normality. Result: Out of 320 participants, 41.9% and 43.1% suffered from neck pain and back pain respectively, out of which 59.7% and 46.7% participant’s symptoms were lock down specific for neck pain and low back pain respectively i.e. either originated or aggravated during the period of lockdown. Participants acquiring sitting posture were suspected to have more prevalent neck pain (57.5%) and low back pain (53.1%) during the period of lock down, followed by lying (31.3% and 34.4%) and reclining (11.3% and 12.5%) for neck pain and low back pain respectively. 66.4% of the participants experienced headache associated with their neck pain i.e. Cervicogenic headache (CGH). 32.8% and 34.% of the participants experiencing pain, also experienced radiating symptoms in upper and lower extremities respectively. Median of the visual analogue pain scale for neck pain and low back pain came out to be 5.00 (3.00-6.00) and 5.00 (4.00-7.00) respectively and physical activity per week of the 320 individuals came out to be 4:15:00 hours (1:00:00 hour-12:00:00hours). 89.7% of the total participants were aware about the physiotherapy and 27.8% claimed that their condition demands physiotherapy assistance by professionals. Conclusion: The present study concludes a common trend of long hours of sitting and lack of physical activity in students and working professionals during this lockdown period, resulted in acute pain in the neck and back region or had worsened the symptoms. Keywords: Coronavirus infections, Low Back Pain, Neck Pain, Cervicogenic Pai