Unveiled exclusively by our colleagues at RMC on Tuesday, an Ifop study for Percko reveals that 69% of French employees suffer or have already suffered from back problems. Among them, 46% of full-time teleworkers say they endure this pain at least once a week. According to the survey, 93% of teleworkers attribute their back pain to their professional activity.
An alarming proportion which would be due to the poor equipment available to teleworkers. “We have a chair from Ikea, but it may not be a great chair that is made to spend more than eight hours sitting”, confides for example a man working from home. According to the study, 73% of employees surveyed want their company to finance quality seats for teleworking, reports The Parisian.
You have to walk regularly
To limit the risk of low back pain as much as possible, the president of the Pays-de-la-Loire order of physiotherapists recommends “countering the repetitive gesture with exercises, changes of position”. Jean-Marie Louchet advises in particular to move and walk regularly.
Otherwise, the pain could set in: “It’s true that we don’t die from it, but it’s almost 100% of French people who will suffer from it in their lives”, insists Professor Rannou, rheumatologist at the Cochin hospital in Paris. The specialist, however, wants to be reassuring: “It is not irremediable and, often, it calms down at the time of retirement, in particular because there are no longer the psychosocial and professional factors which often make things worse”, indicates he.
Women more affected than men
According to the survey, half of employees believe that their back pain makes it more difficult to perform certain tasks. However, 42% do not dare to ask for a work stoppage. In addition, 14% of the 1,004 people questioned between December 6 and 8 believe that their general physical condition has deteriorated “significantly”.
According to The Parisian, back pain is the most common musculoskeletal disorder ahead of shoulder and neck pain. A disorder which, according to the study, affects more women (38%) than men (27%).