Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Putra Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

Introduction: Low back pain (LBP) is a common symptom among working population worldwide. Foggers prone to have LBP because there are exposed to physical factors such as lifting heavy object, awkward body posture and vibration. However, LBP had never been studied among the fogger. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and the factors associated with LBP. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in all District Health Office in Johor, Malaysia by using a validated self-administered questionnaire and anthropometric measure-ments. Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test was used for inferential statistic and multiple logistic regression was used to determine the associated factors. The significance level was determined at p < 0.05. Results: The response rate was 83.9%. Majority of them are male (99.6%), Malay (95.8%), married (85.8%) and educated up to secondary school (53.5%). Majority of respondents do not have part time job (89.6%) but they work overtime everyday (62.7%). Most of them do four hours overtime daily (77.3%). The prevalence of LBP was 68.5% among respondents. There was a significant association between doing part time job, duration of doing overtime per week, body mass index (BMI) and duration of fogging activities. Finally, the associated factors of LBP were doing overtime for more than 20 hours per week (adjusted OR=1.914, 95% CI [1.102, 3.324], p = 0.021), BMI of more than 23.00 kg/m2 (adjusted OR=2.066, 95% CI [1.090, 3.916], p = 0.026) and having no part time job (adjusted OR=0.135, 95% CI [0.031, 0.599], p = 0.021). Conclusion: Prevention needs to be initiated to change the modifiable factors of LBP in order to reduce the prevalence of LBP among them.