Abstract

Background of study: Soft tissue injuries include pain, weakness, numbness, and tingling sensations involving the muscles, ligaments and tendons. The etiological factors of these injuries can be professional, personal, environmental, and psychosocial. These disorders in musicians are designated as playing related soft tissue injuries. Aim of Study: To investigate the disability and severity of playing related soft tissue injuries among professional guitar players. Methodology The cross sectional survey was conducted from February 2017 to June 2018 after taking ethical approval from institutional ethical committee. The participants fulfilling the inclusion criteria were recruited through convenient sampling technique and informed consent was taken. A structured anonymous questionnaire and validated scales like Disability Arm Shoulder and Hand Scale (DASH), Neck Disability Index (NDI), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were used for data collection. The results was assessed by using IBM SPSS Version 20.0. Results: In this study 98 participants were included constituting 50 (51 %) females and 48 (49 %) males. The highest prevalence site of pain was wrist 57% followed by back 26 %, shoulder 22 % and elbow 21 % while least pain was reported in neck 7 %. Likewise, When Compared with DASH score was more than to ODI and NDI score was lower with significant difference assessed at 95% confidence interval (p < 0.05) Conclusion: This study concludes severity of soft tissue injuries are more prone in guitar players. The common sites was in wrist, shoulder, back. Proper technique, postural education, warm up and cool down will benefit in reducing the risk of injuries.