Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Background:-Low back pain (LBP) is one of the major musculoskeletal disorder that cause
disability, affect performance, absenteeism and general health of workers worldwide. Globally
low back pain is among top ten diseases and injuries which accounts the highest disability
adjusted life years (DALYs) and cause work days lost. School teachers are at high risk of low
back pain due to the nature of their daily activities which includes repetitive work, physically
demanding, prolonged standing, sitting, physical effort, and bending, in addition to physical
demands, psychological demand within the work environment are a factor for low back pain
among teachers.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of low back pain and associated factors among high school
teachers in West Arsi Zone Towns Administration, Southwest Ethiopia, 2020.
Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to April 2020. A stratified
sampling technique followed by simple random sampling method was employed to select 602
teachers. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires consisting socio
demographic information, behavioral, Organizational factors, physical and psychosocial factors,
the standardized Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire, Visual analogue scale which is used to
measure the severity of pain and Oswertry low back pain questionnaire that uses for measuring
functional disability was completed. The completed data was entered into Epi data version
4.6.0.0 and exported to statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 22 for analysis. A
bi-variable binary logistic regression analysis was carried out to identify variables with a p<0.2
and Crude odd ratio (COR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).A multivariable binary logistic
regression analysis was done to determine significantly associated variables at a p?0.05 and
Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) with 95% confident interval (CI).
Results:-The response rate was 94.35% (N=568) and the mean age was 36.62(Standard
deviation (±SD=6.277) years .The prevalence of low back pain among high school teachers was
62.68 %( N=356) [95%CI, (58.8-66.5)] and the past seven days prevalence was 36.27 %(
N=206). In the same way 356 of teachers had referred pain, mostly to the thigh area which is
60.67%.In this study marital status[AOR:1.79,95%CI,(1.04, 3.08)],age[AOR:4.01,95%CI,
(1.38,11.60)],
