Course of low back pain among nurses: a longitudinal study across eight years.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the course of low back pain (LBP) among nurses across eight years.


METHODS
A longitudinal study was performed with a follow up at 1 and 8 years among nurses employed by a large university hospital in Switzerland. A modified version of the Nordic Questionnaire was distributed to obtain information about demographic data, occupational activities, and various aspects of LBP. A clinical examination and several functional tests were used to overcome the problems associated with subjective pain reporting. Nurses having answered the questionnaire on all three occasions (n = 269) were classified into subgroups according to their pain intensity. For each subgroup the course of LBP was recorded.


RESULTS
LBP was highly prevalent with an annual prevalence varying from 73% to 76%. A large percentage (38%) indicated the same intensity of LBP on all three occasions. The proportion of nurses reporting repeated increase of LBP (19%) was approximately as large as the proportion who complained about repeated decrease of LBP (17%).


CONCLUSIONS
It became evident that LBP poses a persistent problem among nurses. Over an eight year period almost half of the nurses indicated the same intensity of LBP, thus supporting a recurrent rather than a progressive nature of LBP.
Maul
I
I
Institute of Hygiene and Applied Physiology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Clausiusstr. 25, Switzerland. Irina.Maul@web.de
Läubli
T
T
Klipstein
A
A
Krueger
H
H
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology