Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Low back pain is one of the causes to decrease labor productivity due to time off work. It affects approximately 70% to 85% of the population at some time in life. The work of teachers is not only teaching students, but also doing other activities and hence, these groups are among the occupational groups who have a high prevalence of musculo skeletal disorder (MSD) that may cause teachers to suffer adverse mental and physical health issues due to the variety of job functions that can have a contribution to low back pain. However, limited data are available about the magnitude of the problem especially, among first and second cycle primary school teachers who are working in Mekelle city.
Objective: To Asses the prevalence of Low back pain and Associated factors among first and second cycle primary school teachers.
Methods: Institution based cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted from March 16 to March 30,2015. 656 primary school teachers were selected using simple random sampling technique. Pre-tested and structured self administered questionnaire was used to collect the data .Descriptive statistics was calculated for most variables in the study. OR with 95% CI was used to assess the association between the exposure and outcome variable.
Results: A total of 611 (276 first cycle and 335 second cycle) primary school teachers were included in the study. The prevalence of low back pain was 74.8% [95%CI: 71.4, 78.2]. Of these 220(79.7%) were first cycle and 237 (70.7%) were second cycle primary school teachers. sleeping disturbance[AOR(95% CI)=6.99(2.20,22.20)], not having an office at work area [AOR(95% CI)=0.204(0.05,0.80)], less than 2 hours breaking time [AOR(95% CI)=2.88(1.08,7.66)] and feeling LBP during pregnancy[AOR (95% CI) = 2.27(1.06, 4.88)] had significant association with low back pain.
Conclusion and recommendation: This study showed high prevalence of low back pain among primary school teachers. All responsible people in working area including school directors, district and zone education office heads and supervisors have to consider the severity of this problem and take measure on the risk factors which is modifiable to prevent those which can predispose to low back pain.
