Survey on the Prevalence of Low Back Pain and Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Care among Office Workers

Abstract

This study conducted a questionnaire survey with 396 workers to investigate the work characteristics of employees with low back pain and their subjective symptoms related to musculoskeletal disorders in each body region. [Subjects and methods] The study subjects were 420 patients with low back pain who sought treatment at a hospital in one city in Japan. The author administered surveys to these patients from February 15 to April 1, 2014, to identify the characteristics of their work, their subjective symptoms, and the relationships between the two. The statistics program used in this study was SPSS 18.0. [Results] Sitting posture at work and repeated movements at work also influenced low back pain. Among the patients with spinal disorders, 99.5% experienced low back pain and recognized that the main cause of the pain was incorrect posture. The surgery rate was very low, but most respondents had not only gone to clinics and hospitals for help but had also used alternative therapy for their low back pain. The treatments alleviated the patients’ low back pain, and patients’ satisfaction with the treatment effects was high as well. [conclusion] With regard to subjective symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders in body regions other than the low back, the largest number of respondents had symptoms in the neck and shoulders, and the correlations between subjective symptoms of musculoskeletal disorders in the low back and in the shoulders ( <0.001) and neck ( <0.001) were the highest.