Comparing the Effect of Soft Tissue Stretching and Release Strategies on Pain, Fatigue and Quality of Life in employees with Non-Specific Chronic Neck Pain

Introduction and objectives: Chronic neck pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders that greatly impact people's quality of life, health, and work efficiency. With the high costs of drug treatments, the search for simple and low-cost treatment solutions is inevitable Stretching and tissue release techniques are effective solutions in correcting skeletal-muscular disorders; In this study, an attempt was made to investigate their effectiveness in controlling pain and improving the performance of people suffering from non-specific chronic neck pain.  Methods: In this semi-experimental study with parallel groups and pre-test-post-test design, the number of 39 patients with non-specific chronic neck pain with an average age of 25 to 45 years, in a non-random way and available from among the employees behind the desk were chosen. Individuals were randomly assigned to three groups of traction, release, and control, and received the interventions for six weeks. At the beginning and after the completion of the interventions, pain intensity was evaluated with the visual measure of pain, qualitative fatigue with the multidimensional fatigue questionnaire, and quality of life with the SF36 questionnaire. In order to compare the averages, the mixed analysis of variance test was used and the significance level was (P<0.05).  Results: Intra-group comparisons showed that pain intensity, quality of life, and fatigue improved significantly in both intervention groups (P<0.05). Stretching and release exercises both had a significant effect on improving the variables (P<0.05). But the superiority was with the group of release exercises.  Conclusion: Six weeks of releasing and stretching techniques in non-specific chronic neck pain patients reduces pain and fatigue and increases their quality of life.