Aims

1. The principle aim of the study is to examine whether being a driver will lead to an increase in the risk of back pain from the general population by ascertaining the prevalence of back pain among the professional drivers in Abu Dhabi (UAE) and to compare it to the prevalence of back pain in the general population.

2. To investigate whether the type of vehicle driven is a risk factor for back pain by comparing the prevalence of back pain among taxi drivers to the prevalence of back pain among bus drivers and heavy vehicle drivers.

Method It is a cross sectional study that look into the following:

• Prevalence of back pain among professional drivers in Abu Dhabi.

• Comparing the prevalence of back pain between taxi drivers, bus drivers and heavy vehicles.

• All professional drivers attend Al Madina Occupational Health Centre (Abu Dhabi) for all types of medical assessments (Pre-employment, periodic, fitness to return to work or fitness for the extension of services) who agree to participate are included in the study.

• The study ran from January 2015 up to May 2015.

• The sample size was 499.

• Data was collected by a self-filled questionnaire, which has been modified from a validated New Zealand acute low back pain questionnaire (permission taken).

The questionnaire includes general demographic data, work details and back pain information.

Result The study was carried out in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The study population was 499 (the response rate was 92%). 27 questionnaires were excluded due to incomplete or missed information. The rest were 472 drivers, 141 of them disclose back pain in the previous 3.

12 month, giving prevalence of 29.9%. From those with back pain 92% deny any other health problems that affect their back. 82% of them described their pain as mild. 80.9% mentioned that minor physical activity does not make their pain worse. 87.2% declare that, they can do light work for an hour without pain being a problem.

In this study some occupational factors have been investigated with relation to back pain in professional drivers. It shows that, working hours >8 hours per day, working days >5 days per week and years of driving >10 years, are significantly associated with increased back pain in professional drivers (p value 0.004) less than 0.05. It also shows that prevalence of back pain increases with long distance driving (p value 0.001). Other factors such as BMI >25 is also associated with increased risk of back pain in professional drivers. The study shows that smoking, marital status and psychological factors (yellow flags) have no relation with increased risk of back pain.

To investigate if type of vehicle will increase the risk of back pain, the study showed that, prevalence of back pain differs between the different types of drivers. The number of taxi drivers participating in this study were 231 drivers, 65 disclose back pain in the previous 12 month giving the percentage of 28.1%. For Bus, drivers the participant were 189 out of these 49 disclose back pain in previous 12 month giving the percentage of 25.9%. On the other hand heavy vehicle drivers participant were 52, those disclose back pain in previous 12 month, were 27 drivers giving percentage of 51.9%. If we compare the 3 types of the drivers we will notice that heavy vehicle drivers have high percentage of back pain compare to others. It means that heavy vehicle increase the risk of back pain compared to taxi and bus.

The study show that, pain location in different types of drivers is differ according to the vehicle.

1. Heavy vehicle drivers feel pain in their lower back were 63% compared to those felt pain in upper back including shoulder and neck, which were 33%. (11.1%+22.2%)

2. While bus drivers who feel pain in lower back were 40.8% compared to those felt it in the upper back, shoulder and neck, which were 26.5%. (6.1%+14.3%+6.1%)

3. In Taxi drivers those who feel pain in lower back were 27.7% while those feel pain in upper back, shoulder and neck were 67.6%. (21.5%+21.5%+24.6%)

If we compare the pain location in the 3 types of the drivers (taxi, bus, heavy vehicle) we will notice that taxi drivers feel pain more in upper back, shoulder and neck, while bus and heavy vehicle drivers feel pain more in their lower bac.