One feels it but one must overlook it: low back pain in the life of women working in the textile sector of Blumenau - Santa Catarina

Abstract

This study was developed with the objective of understanding how women working in the textile sector of Blumenau, state of Santa Catarina, cope with low back pain. Three women who worked in the textile sector of that city were the main informants of the study, developed in biweekly meetings and visits to workplaces. The study tools were a calendar with dates and week days, where the participants should mark the occurrence of low back pain, and a Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Besides accounts registered in forms during the meetings, a field diary for transcription of facts and accounts was used. The collected data led to the construction of two interpretative categories: low back pain under the aspect of normality and felt pain. In light of the results, it is possible to conclude that low back pain, in the point of view of the women from the textile sector of Blumenau, is expressed as a kind of conflict between normal pain, without social importance, and the felt pain, which is restrictive and brings suffering and anguish in the private scope. The duality of low back pain is outstanding, because these are women who feel pain, which is real for them and has an important impact on their lives, but they make an effort to neglect it, following the socially accepted conception for this issue in the region's cultural context. The constructed concept of low back pain is of something inherent in life and work, which does not give them the right to feel ill.