Background

Non-specific low back pain is when it isn’t possible to identify a specific disease or structural reason to explain the pain. It is well recognized that the teachers make up an elite group where low back pain (LBP) appears to be highly prevalent. It causes numerous sick days, functional impairment and early retirement. It is also difficult in terms of medical expenses, personal distress and job loss.

Aim

To conduct a survey on the prevalence and severity of non-specific LBP among school teachers in Kerala.

Setting

The study was conducted among different school teachers in Kerala.

Methods

The study was conducted among school teachers below 10^th grade in Kerala. It consisted of 3 parts: The first part included demographic and job-related data like name, email, age, gender, district, height, weight, level of education, marital status, no of children, mode of transport, travelling distance, level of teaching, subject teaching, type of school, frequent exerciser, years of experience in teaching and teaching hours per day. Second part included Oswestry low back pain questionnaire and the third part included Numerical pain rating scale (NPRS). Once the responses of all the participants were collected, it was analysed and all the data were expressed as frequency and percentage.

Results

Depending on the inclusion criteria, a total of 242 participants took part in the survey. Their mean age was 40.5 ± 8.7 years. Results were obtained as 200 (83%) of these school teachers are suffering from non-specific LBP with 80.7% of the males and 82.8% of the females are affected. The questionnaire reveals 49.2% of the teachers are having mild disability. NPRS shows 64% of teachers are suffering from moderate pain. Considering the various BMI categories, the most affected group were those with BMI<18.5. Depending on age, level of teaching, years of experience, working hours per day, subjects teaching, type of school, frequent exercising, mode of transport and marital status the findings were 46-60 age group, LP teachers, 22-31 years, 6-10 hours/day, arts teachers, government school teachers, frequent exerciser, two wheelers and unmarried teachers have more prevalence of LBP.

Conclusion

The study reveals there is a high prevalence of LBP among school teachers. The various demographic factors contributing to LBP were advancing age, female gender and travelling by 2-wheeler. Normal or reduced BMI and frequent exercising had no significant reduction in LBP. Years of experience and continues working hours were found to be the other major occupational risk factors. They should be advised on preventive measures to avoid further complications.