Prevalence of Lower back pain in a sample population of Musculo-skeletal disorders - Cross sectional community based study

Abstract

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) is a global term for several types of disorders affecting the body’s joints, ligaments, muscles, nerves, tendons and structures that support limbs, neck and back. Low back pain (LBP) is most common musculoskeletal disorder defined as pain and discomfort, localised below the costal margin and above the inferior gluteal folds, with or without referred leg pain.LBP is one of the most common conditions encountered in clinical medicine.LBP is a pain arising from the spinal or paraspinal structures in the lumbo sacral region, extends approx. from the iliac crests to the coccyx.Hippocrates (460–377 BC), the father of medicine first described back pain with its cause as predominance of phlegm in the body. The Edwin Smith papyrus, the oldest surgical text dating to 1500 BC, includes a case of back strain.Zakaria Razi (865–925 AD), an eminent Unani scholar, described low back pain as waja-uz-zahar/dardepusht, with its etiology as trauma, disc prolapse and spinal abscesses.Worldwide LBP point prevalence ranges from 1.0% to 58.1%. In India, occurrence of LBP is also alarming; nearly 60% of the people in India have significant LBP at some time or the other in their lifespan. A Cross sectional community-based study was carried out in Kachohalli, to collect the data from house-to-house survey to identify the respondents between 18 to 60 years of age, with a sample size of 1000. A screening schedule and questionnaire was used to identify the positive respondents and were further evaluated in Oswestry Disability Questionnaire. Standard clinical criteria were used for diagnosis. Chi-square/ Fisher Exact test has been used to find the significance of study parameters. The data was analyzed using Statistical software SAS 9.2, SPSS 15. The prevalence of low back pain 8% (81/1000). As per ODQ, score 38.3% (31/81) were moderately affected.