Influence of clinical practice in trapezius muscle myofascial trigger points in nursing students: longitudinal descriptive study
Abstract
Aim: To observe whether the tasks performed by nursing students during their third year of nursing degrees have an influence on the state of MTP of their trapezius muscle.Participants and Methods: 30 third-year students from Alcalá de Henares University College of Nursing were evaluated. Exclusion criteria: to suffer any sense or trophic muscular disorder, to have begun or be receiving any influential treatment. A questionnaire about the types of tasks they carry out and other sociodemographic and academical work factors were done. Students were assessed to check the presence of some MTP in their trapezius, describing its active or dormant state through diagnostic criteria, their pressure pain threshold (measured with an algometer) and active ranges of cervical movements were also recorded. All measurements were taken before and after one month of the experiment. Through the statistical analysis the data collected in the questionnaire was compared with the state of the MTP in both moments, with a p<0.05 and a 95% confidence interval.
Results: all the subjects were women who over the course of the experiment recorded a 1.8- upper scoring on the visual analogue scale, they showed an average increase of 1.55º in the cervical ranges of motion, except flexion; and the pressure pain threshold rose an average 0.139 kg/cm2. Trigger points (TP) 1 and 2 changed from dormant to active state on 6,7% of the subjects, and the TP5 on 3,3%. At the end of the experiment the TP6 appeared as 6,7% of them.
Conclusions: tendencies have been observed among the analyzed variables which allow the proposition of more specific studies about biological and socio-labour factors linked to MTPs in order to establish physio-therapeutic efficient strategies for incorporation into the professional world.
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