Prevalence of neck pain in higher secondary students (8th to 12th standard) due to e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic period: An online survey

Introduction: Neck pain is a typical complaint among people who spend a lot of time on their devices. Due to the pandemic situation, students have recently shifted their studies from the classroom to e-learning, causing them to spend excessive hours on gadgets. Thus, it is of utmost importance to study the prevalence of neck pain in students using gadgets for e-learning. The purpose of this research was to study the prevalence of neck pain in higher secondary students using electronic gadgets for e-learning during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic period.

Method: A survey-based study was carried out on 1007 students from 8th to 12th grade. Data was collected via Google Form and analyzed using SPSS software. Mann Whitney-U test and the Kruskal Wallis test were used for a comparative analysis.

Results: In this study, a total of 1007 students participated, out of whom 615 reported experiencing neck pain. Of those experiencing neck pain, 268 were males and 347 were females, with mean pain intensities of 4.64 and 4.77 respectively.

Conclusion: The findings of the present study suggest that the prevalence of neck pain is higher in students using gadgets for e-learning.