Prevalence and Distribution of Musculoskeletal Pain Among Australian Medical Students

Abstract

Objectives: Although musculoskeletal pain [MSP] represents an important issue for young people and adolescents, few studies have investigated these conditions among a cross-section of medical students.

Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey of MSP among 261 students from a medical school in tropical northern Australia during 2004.

Results: We had a 97.3 percent response rate. The prevalence of MSP at any body site varied from 75.8 percent in the second-year students to 89.3 percent in the third-year students, most frequently occurring at the neck [52.8 percent], lower back [51.6 percent], and shoulders [46.5 percent]. When compared with males, female students were more likely to report MSP [3.4 times for neck pain, 2.5 times for upper back pain, 2.0 times for shoulder pain, and 1.8 times as for lower back pain]. Second-year medical students were only 0.4 times as likely to report MSP at either the neck, upper back, or any body site when compared to students in the other three grades.

Conclusions: Overall, our study suggests that MSP affects Australian medical students at reasonably high rates, although the prevalence, distributions, and correlations for these conditions do not appear to be uniform.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical student
• musculoskeletal pain
• low back pain
• Australia
• prevalence