Prevalence of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in Pregnancy; A Cross-Sectional Study

Prevalence of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in Pregnancy

Abstract

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome is the most common compression neuropathy of the median nerve, which can occur or aggravate during pregnancy and sometimes needs surgery. The most common cause of complaints in pregnant women is carpel tunnel syndrome. The investigation is meant to report the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome in connection to pregnancy and evaluate how huge the infection was among pregnant females. Objective: To assess the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome in pregnancy. Methods: The study was cross-sectional and data was collected from surgical and gynecological departments of four major hospitals of Lahore which are General Hospital Lahore, Nawaz Sharif Social Security Hospital Multan Chungi Lahore, Jinnah Hospital Lahore, and Children’s Hospital Lahore and was compiled at University Institute of Physical Therapy of the University of Lahore. The study was completed 6 months after the approval of the synopsis. The size of the sample is 256 and used convenient sampling technique. Pregnant women who had been under 20-40 years and excluded those who had high-risk pregnancies, psychological conditions, chronic medical illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc. A cross-sectional survey was done on 256 subjects at different hospitals in Lahore using the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Questionnaire for Wrist or hand pain to determine the prevalence rate of pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome data and is analyzed through the SPSS 21 version. Results: During the study period, 256 pregnant women attending different hospitals and 118 (46.0%) women were found to have carpel tunnel symptoms. Most of them were in 3^rd trimester of pregnancy 55.9%(143) followed by the 2^nd trimester 21.9%(56) and the least was in the 1^st trimester 22.3%(57). The most common complaint was numbness, particularly during the daytime (30.0%), while the least frequent symptom reported was pain. Conclusion: A large number of pregnant women suffer from the recurrent experience of carpal tunnel syndrome in pregnancy and it is first noted during the third trimester, but only in 50% of women symptoms vanish one year after delivery. Although pregnancy is typically viewed as a risk factor for this syndrome.