Back pain in Australian military helicopter pilots: a preliminary study.
BACKGROUND
Several studies have highlighted the problem of back pain among helicopter pilots, but few have controlled for potential confounding factors in their analyses, or sought to examine the effects of back pain on operational readiness and flying performance. There have been no previous studies of the prevalence of back pain among Australian military pilots.


METHODS
The prevalence, risk factors, and consequences of low back pain were assessed in a cross-sectional survey of 200 Australian military helicopter pilots by self-completion questionnaire.


RESULTS
Responses were received from 131 (66%) of available pilots. The overall prevalence of reported back pain was 64% (95% CI 56%-72%), with a further 28% of pilots describing back discomfort while flying. More than half the pilots (55%) indicated that back pain had interfered with their concentration while flying, with 16% reporting that they had hurried flying missions because of pain. A minority of pilots (7%) had refused to fly because of back problems. After adjusting for age, education, BMI, posture and numbers of hours flown, multiple logistic regression modelling indicated that a prior history of back injury was the most significant predictor of back pain among rotary wing pilots (OR 2.63, 95% CI 1.11-6.23).


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that the prevalence of back pain in Australian military helicopter pilots is unacceptably high and may be limiting operational readiness, pilot performance, flying safety, and pilot health. Urgent attention needs to be given to improved ergonomic design in aircraft, and both back pain prevention and back injury rehabilitation programs.
Thomae
M K
MK
Center for Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.
Porteous
J E
JE
Brock
J R
JR
Allen
G D
GD
Heller
R F
RF
D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D000401:Aircraft; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D001416:Back Pain / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006804:Ergonomics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires