Published Paper Details:

Mathadi workers are Head loaders carrying a load of material on their heads or back to stack at the appropriate place. They are regularly engaged with a specific operation such as loading, unloading, stacking, carrying, weighing, measuring, or other work. Mathadi workers develop chronic low back aches because of these cumulative forces passing on the spine with excessive job demands. The fear-avoidance model (FAM) of musculoskeletal pain describes a potential process for the development of chronic pain syndromes. Hence it was necessary to find out the kinesiophobia in Mathadi workers. 40 Mathadi workers with chronic nonspecific low back pain were evaluated for kinesiophobia using the Tampa scale of kinesiophobia TSK-11. This study showed an average score of 22 points on the scale of kinesiophobia, which is considered a very low level for patients with chronic low back pain. Also, the correlation of kinesiophobia score with age, work experience, and pain intensity showed a very weak correlation which was statistically insignificant. These results are different from the previous studies as behavioural responses observed in Mathadi workers show that these workers choose to face pain, believing that the presence of pain does not justify the limitation of their functional activities.