Article Type
Original Study
Abstract
Background: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders affecting adults. Many studies indicated that LBP is highly prevalent among medical students as many risk factors may increase the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain among them, such as exposure to psychological distress, study problems, long training hours in hospital wards and clinics, and the increasing use of computers in teaching and learning, which may be considered a sedentary life to some extent. This study aims to measure the prevalence of LBP and determine the relationship between psychological distress and LBP among medical students at Port Said University.
Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from January to May 2024. Data were collected from 270 medical students from the Faculty of Medicine, Port Said University. The questionnaire was filled out privately by the medical students themselves. Data was collected by self-administrated questionnaires to assess the prevalence of LBP using a focused standardized Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire (SNMQ) and to evaluate the degree of psychological distress using the K10 scale so we could determine the relationship between psychological distress and LBP. The sample was collected by convenient sampling.
Results: The current study included medical students aged 18 to 24 years and showed that 77.8% (n = 210) of participants had LBP during the year preceding the survey, and about 40.70% of participants experienced LBP during the last week. Gender is reported to be in a significant relationship with the prevalence of LBP (p-value = 0.029), as females are more prone to have LBP. About 40.37% (n = 109) of students had severe levels of psychological distress, while 12.96% were well. There was a positive correlation between the prevalence of LBP and the degree of psychological distress (p-value = 0.030).
Conclusion: The data of this study suggest a high prevalence of LBP among medical students with a significant association between the prevalence of LBP and female gender and that LBP is an important independent predictor of psychological distress.
Keywords
Low back pain, Psychological distress, Medical students
How to Cite This Article
Kandeel, Fatma MA; Mohamed, Fatma MA; Farrag, Nesrine S.; and Galhom, Ayman E.
(2025)
"Prevalence and Predictors of Low Back Pain among Medical Students from Egypt,"
Advanced Spine Journal: Vol. 44
:
Iss.
1
, Article 3.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.57055/2974-4822.1317
