Association of Patellofemoral Syndrome with Prolonged Duration of Sitting among Teachers; A Cross-Sectional Survey

Abstract

Although there are several etiologies for patellofemoral pain syndrome, prolonged sitting is one of the less well-understood causes. Recently, there has been some discussion about the alignment problems. The purpose of the present research is to investigate the alignment issues that may arise because of extended sitting. Teachers are among the members of the population who may be forced to such long periods of sitting. In this manner, it may benefit teachers and the whole community. OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to determine the association of patellofemoral syndrome with duration of sitting among teachers. METHODS: This was a Cross-Sectional Study conducted among 278 male 104 (37.4%) and female 174 ( university teachers having an age range of 25 to 50 years, spending an average of 4 hours in sitting 62.6%) position and having pain were included in the study, based on convenience sampling technique. Data was collected after taking ethical approval from The University of Lahore by using the SNAPPS (survey instrument for natural history, etiology, and prevalence of patellofemoral pain studies) Questionnaire. SPSS 25 was used to analyze data. RESULTS: The descriptive statistics showed a mean and standard deviation to be 30.81±4.08 for age, 5.39±1.09 for the sitting duration, 5.233±2.81 for teaching experience, and 22.28±11.48 for patellofemoral pain syndrome. The results showed that there were 12.6% of teachers with no chances of patellofemoral pain syndrome at the time of data collection, 11.5% with minimal chances, 73% had borderline and 2.9% having early symptoms of PFPS. The results regarding association of PFPS and sitting duration per day showed a significant direction association as shown by p-value 0.01. CONCLUSION: The study concluded that there was a significant association between number of sitting hours and patellofemoral pain syndrome among teachers. Most prolonged sitters are at more risk for developing patellofemoral pain syndrome. There were no teachers in the advance stage of patellofemoral pain syndrome.