Musculoskeletal disorders II

O14.1 EPIDEMIOLOGY OF LOW BACK AND NECK-SHOULDER PAIN AMONG INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN IRAN: EXPERIENCE FROM A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

M. Ghaffari^1,2, A. Alipour², A. A. Farshad³, I. Jensen², E. Vingard².¹Department of Public Health Science, Karolinska Institutet; ²Section for Personal Injury Prevention, Karolinska Institutet; ³Department of Occupational Health, Iran University of Medical Science

Introduction: Musculoskeletal pain and disorder is a major health problem in the world. Most low back pain (LBP) and neck-shoulder pain (NSP) epidemiological data is related to developed and industrialised countries and there is little information about LBP and NSP in the general population in developing and low income countries. There are even fewer studies in working populations.

Methods: For generating knowledge about the epidemiology of LBP and NSP in Iran we ran this prospective longitudinal study, to assess cumulative incidence and recurrence of LBP and NSP in an industrial population, and to investigate the association between age, sex, job title, and working experience with incidence and recurrence during a one year follow up period. The entire group of 18 031 employees at car manufacturing company in Iran was included in the study. Baseline data were collected with standardised Nordic Questionnaire and incident cases were defined with special registration system.

Results: During one year follow up the incidence of disabling LBP was 2.1% and the recurrence of disabling LBP was 2.9%. Cumulative recurrence of LBP was 0.3% and 97% of people with LBP at baseline recovered during one year follow up. For NSP the incidence of disabling NSP was 0.1% and the recurrence was 1.3%. Cumulative recurrence of NSP was 0.01 and 99.8% of people with NSP at baseline recovered during one year follow up.

Conclusion: This study is one of the first longitudinal studies in which prevalence, incidence, and recurrence of LBP and NSP were studied simultaneously, with this number of …