INTRODUCTION AND AIM:

Low back pain is a common occupational health problem that cuts across various occupations; from heavy labourers to sedentary office workers. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of back care education on farmers suffering from chronic mechanical low back pain.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

The subjects comprised of 200 male peasant farmers in Ibarapa East Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select subjects for this study and they were randomly assigned to treatment group (TG) or control group (CG) based on their location. Each group had 100 subjects. The chronic pain questionnaire was used to assess the initial pain intensity and functional disability of all the subjects. The subjects in the TG were trained in back care education 5 times within 8 weeks while subjects in CG were not trained. Subjects in both the treatment and control groups were re-assessed for pain intensity and functional disability after 8 weeks, using the chronic pain questionnaire. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics of t-test at 0.05 alpha.

RESULTS:

The results of this study showed significantly higher initial pain intensity for the treatment group (TG=58.33+13.22, CG=53.53+14.29),(p=0.015) but after 8 weeks of training the pain intensity of the treatment group was significantly lower than that of the control group (TG=37.10+11.52; CG=48.60+14.40) (p = 0.001). The results showed that there was no significant difference in the initial functional disability of the two groups (TG=38.40+20.98; CG=36.40+20.98) but the functional disability score of the treatment group was significantly lower than that of the control group (TG=24.83+15.25; CG=32.36+19.35) (p=0.003) after receiving back care education.

CONCLUSION:

Back care education caused a reduction in pain intensity and functional disability of farmers with chronic mechanical low back pain. It is recommended that back care education should be used to reduce back pain and disability among farmers.

Key Words: Back care education, Low back pain, Farmers.

DR. O. AYANNIYI ¹ AND  O.G   IGE²

¹Dept. of Physiotherapy College of Medicine, University of Ibadan; ² Dept. of Physiotherapy, National Orthopedic Hospital, Lagos. Nigeria.