Cervical and back pain syndrome in port workers.

The surveyed group consisted of 338 port workers including 136 stevedores, 128 operators of mechanized equipment and 74 hoistmen. 233 people (68.9%) complained of cervical and back pain. In relation to the size of the groups examined, the pain was reported by 84.6% stevedores, 60.8% hoistmen and 57.0% operators. On the basis of the clinical course, the types of the pains were determined in stevedores to be: skeletogenic--in 41.8% of them, neurogenic--25.4%, angiogenic--4.5% and mixed within the cervical segment of the spine--28.3%. The back pain in the group of stevedores was classified as high ischialgia--in 65.7%, low ischialgia--in 24.6% and lumbar pain and sacralgia--in 9.7% of cases. In hoistmen and operators, lumbagia and sacralgia were two times more frequent than in stevedores. Sick leave in the subjects examined in the course of the seven-year observation totalled 18,452 days, in that number 7646 days in connection with diseases of the muscular-skeletal system, and 5150 days by problem in the spine. In operators and hoistmen the absence caused by these diseases was proportionally two times lower than in stevedores.