Prevalence, frequency and factors associated to back pain in a group of university students

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence, frequency, and associated factors of complaints of back pain in a group of university students, identifying the academic commitment of these individuals. METHODS: This was a descriptive quantitative study, carried out in October 2016, with 90 undergraduate students, randomly selected from a Higher Education Institution in the city of Fortaleza, CE. Data were collected through a questionnaire produced by the author of the study, in which he questioned about the population's life habits, average daily study time, positions taken during that period, body diagram used to locate pain, and Visual analog scale from 0 to 10 to quantify this discomfort. The results of this research were analyzed and expressed in the form of tables developed in the PowerPoint program. RESULTS: Regarding the question "how often do you experience back pain while studying?" 72 of the individuals in the sample report that they feel pain every time they study, the rest have shown that they do not feel pain or only feel at some points in the study. Of these students who feel pain, only 26 report that pain influences the quality of the study. The lowest reported pain was 10% which suggested minimal pain and the maximum pain found was 90%. As for the postures that individuals adopt during study hours, it was seen that the sitting position obtained the highest average with 83 questioned, and the main place of pain, in the lumbar region. CONCLUSION: It can be assumed that painful complaints, mostly in the lumbar region, are related to the sitting posture for long periods of time adopted by most students.