Association between vision problems and neck pain in adults: a cohort study

Abstract

Introduction: There is a scarcity of longitudinal studies that have evaluated the association between vision problems and neck pain. Objectives: To investigate whether there is an association between vision problems and neck pain in adults after one year of follow-up. Methods: Longitudinal observational study. A total of 457 asymptomatic volunteers regarding neck pain, aged between 18 and 65 years participated in the study. Sociodemographic, anthropometric, and lifestyle issues, about dependence on cell phone use, related to vision problems and neck pain were assessed using a self-completed questionnaire. One year after the baseline assessment, participants were contacted to answer a second questionnaire containing only questions related to neck pain and frequency of neck pain. The independent variable was vision problems, while the dependent variables were neck pain (primary outcome), and frequency of neck pain (secondary outcome). Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between the variable vision problems, assessed at baseline, and neck pain after one year, as well as with frequency of neck pain. A third and fourth model were used to analyze the association between vision problems with three categories (no vision problems, corrected vision problems and uncorrected vision problems) and the outcomes neck pain after one year and neck pain frequencies. Results: Logistic regression analysis showed no association between vision problems and neck pain (OR = 1,324, 95% CI 0,658–2,664, p-value 0,432), however, the analysis suggests an association between vision problems and frequency of neck pain (OR = 1,494, 95% CI 0,974–2,292, p-value 0,066). In the model with the variable vision problem with three categories (no vision problem, corrected vision problem, uncorrected vision problem), no association was found between any of the categories and neck pain (corrected vision problems OR = 1,548, 95% CI 0,756–3,169, p-value 0,232; uncorrected vision problems OR = 0,346, 95% CI 0,044–2,757, p-value 0,317). No association was found between uncorrected vision problems and frequency of neck pain (OR = 1,03, 95% CI 0,457–2,321, p-value 0,943), but there was a statistically significant association between corrected vision problems and frequency of neck pain (OR = 1,609, 95% CI 1,028–2,518, p-value 0,038). Conclusion: This study found an association between corrected vision problems and frequency of neck pain in adults, however, did not show an association between vision problems and neck pain.