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Abstract

Background: Lateral epicondylitis (LE) is a disease in which repeated wrist and forearm activities cause degeneration of the tendons. Chefs who regularly perform hand-gripping, lifting and stirring activities upon their employments.
Objective: To determine impact of tennis elbow on functional disability & physical therapy awareness among chefs.
Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study on 20 and 50 years of chefs had experienced in different culinary situations for four months. Assessment was based on the Patient-Rated Tennis Elbow Evaluation (PRTE) questionnaire. Information about age, occupational hours, intensity of pain and functional deficits, and awareness of physiotherapy were also collected. The analysis of data was done based on SPSS 26.0 software, and results are presented as mean scores, frequencies and %ages.
Results: Of the 183 participants, 37.2% mentioned suffering from lateral epicondylitis. Right sided involvement was the highest (28.4%) followed by bilateral involvement (8.87%). The average patient-rated elbow evaluation (PRTE) score was 31.26 ± 14.34, with mean pain sub-score 14.08 ± 10.08, mean functional disability sub-score 5.27 ± 4.73, and mean usual activities were 31.26 ± 14.34. Awareness of physiotherapy was low: 47.0% heard of physiotherapy, 20.8 % knew what its function was, and only 6.6 % ever sought help from it. However, about 41.5% believed in the effectiveness of physiotherapy.
Conclusion: The conclusion of the study was that lateral epicondylitis affected 36.8 % chefs greatly interfering with their daily activities, work and their recreation. In spite of the prevalence and functional burden, only 6.2% received physiotherapy sessions for managing their condition.
Keywords: Lateral Epicondylitis, Tennis Elbow, Chefs, Functional Disability, Physical Therapy, PRTE, Occupational Health.