title: A correlation between low back pain and associated factors: a study involving 772 patients who had undergone general physical examination.
abstract: Many factors are associated with the development of low back pain. Among them, exercise, obesity, smoking, age, educational level and stress are the most common. This study examined the association of these factors with low back pain. An additional aim was to determine a procedure for preventing low back pain. This study analyzed the responses to a questionnaire sent to 772 individuals who had undergone a medical examination at this hospital in 2003 and excluded the individuals who had shown symptoms or their test results indicated a particular disease. Assuming that there were no variables, individuals who exercised regularly 3-4 times per week would have a lower chance of having low back pain than those who did not exercise regularly. The analysis revealed that individuals with a college degree or higher education have a lower chance of experiencing low back pain than those with only a high school education or even college drop-outs. When the other variables were constant, age, extent of obesity (body mass index), smoking and level of stress were not found to affect the development of low back pain. The level of education was associated with the development of low back pain. However, regular exercise 3-4 times per week or more would be most effective in reducing the incidence and duration of low back pain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, 50 Ilwon-Dong, Gangnam-Gu, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Min A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Woo Seok
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Shim
authors.forename: Myung Hee
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Mi Sook
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Gwak
authors.forename: Tae Soo
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Hahm
authors.forename: Gaab Soo
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Chung Su
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Yoon Ho
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Jeong Heon
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Hyun Sung
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Tae Hyeong
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015897:Comorbidity; D004522:Educational Status; D015444:Exercise; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011379:Prognosis; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D017678:Sex Distribution; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology