1Ahmad Rehman, 1Saud Khaled Mohamed Naser Aldoseri, 1Ahmed Fadhel Abbas Husein Saleh, 1Hareth Mohamed Khalil Mansoor Alarayedh
1Gulf Medical University
Objective(s):
Primary objective; To determine the Prevalence of back pain amongst health care workers in the United Arab Emirates. Secondary objective; To assess the factors associated with back pain amongst health care workers in the United Arab Emirates. To assess the preventive strategies adopted by the affected personnel.
Method(s): A cross sectional study is going to be conducted where a representative sample of health care workers will be taken from Thumbay Hospital. Upon taking permission from Thumbay University Hospital administration Health Care Workers will be contacted to fill a questionnaire followed by statistical analysis of the data.
Result(s): The most common location of back pain seen amongst health care workers is the lower back, followed by the neck with 47.2%, shoulders with 43.4% and upper back with 37.5%. Age did demonstrate an increase in back pain as the population grew. The emergency department reported the highest prevalence of back pain with 85% of staff having back pain. A correlation was found between presenting with chronic and non-communicable diseases and having back pain. Of the 38 participants that have chronic disorders 30 of them have back pain as well as out of 35 participants that had non communicable diseases 88.6% of them had association with back pain in the last 12 months.
Conclusion(s): Back pain is one of the problems that is hard to classify. They are certain factors that have strong links associated with back pain, however in most cases the problem is multifactorial. Back pain is hard to diagnose as in most cases the cause is idiopathic. Back pain has shown to be one of the most common causes of hospital visits as well as days off from work.