ASSOCIATION BETWEEN LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE AND PSYCHOSOCIAL VARIABLES OF WORK-RELATED LOW BACK PAIN AMONG SELECTED UNSKILLED WORKERS IN ONDO TOWN
Abstract
Background: Chronic low back pain is a common and preventable complain among unskilled workers. Efforts on primary prevention of low back pain has been challenging due to difficulties in affirming work- relatedness of chronic back pain among workers.
Aim: To determine the association between level of knowledge and psychosocial variables of Work-Related Low Back Pain among selected unskilled workers.
Method: Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Ethics and Health Research Committee of the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo State before commencement of this study. This cross-sectional study involved 240 participants with low back pain. Participants were recruited purposively; informed consent was taken and sociodemographic questionnaire was administered to retrieve the characteristics of each participant. Pain intensity of the lower back was assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) while low back pain knowledge questionnaire (LKQ) was used to assess their knowledge and understanding of low back pain. The SF-12 questionnaire was administered to determine the health-related quality of life of the participants and fear avoidance belief questionnaire was used to assess the fear of pain. Descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage and Inferential statistics of Chi-square (X2) were used to analyze the data. Alpha level was set at p< 0.05.
Results: It was shown that majority (75.8%) of the unskilled workers had fair knowledge of WRLBP and there was no significant association between Work Related LBP and level of knowledge of low back pain among unskilled workers (p=0.344). Also, no significant association was found between level of knowledge of LBP and FABs; (p= 0.879). There was significant association between level of knowledge of LBP and SF-12 HRQoL physical component (P=0.01) however, there was no significant association between level of knowledge and SF-12 HRQoL mental component (p=0.625).
Conclusion: This study revealed the strong prevalence level of Work-Related Low Back among the selected unskilled workers in Ondo and concluded that level of back pain knowledge had an impact on physical quality of life among unskilled workers but no impact on mental quality of life and fear avoidance beliefs.
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