Prevalence of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Symptoms in Excavator Machine Drivers in District Swat, Pakistan

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of carpel tunnel syndrome (CTS) symptoms among excavator machine drivers in the district of Swat, Pakistan.  The duration of the research study was six months and the data was collected within two months. Data was collected by a CTS diagnostic questionnaire. The sample size calculated for the research study was 292. A convenience sampling technique was used in this study.  There were 3 categories of diagnostic CTS questionnaire in which 10(3.4%) fell in unlikely CTS (1-2 score category-1), 134(45%) fell in the suggested possibility of CTS (3-4 score category-2) and 148(50.7%) fell in strongly suggestive of CTS (5 or more score category-3). The mean and standard deviation of CTS symptoms among excavator driver participants was 2.4726±0.56465. We observed an association between CTS symptoms and excavator machine drivers through the Chi-square test. The results of this study demonstrate a high prevalence of CTS symptoms among excavator machine drivers in the district of Swat, Pakistan.