Has the COVID-19 outbreak altered the prevalence of low back pain among physiotherapy students?

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the prevalence of low back pain (LBP) among physiotherapy students during the COVID-19 lockdown in the State of Israel.

Participants/methods

One hundred and sixty four physiotherapy students from all four-year student levels were invited to participate. One hundred and thirty-seven students (83.5%) were recruited in the study with 79 females (57.7%) and 58 males (42.3%). We used a structured anonymous questionnaire that sought standard information on age, height, weight, sports activity and low back pain (LBP) prevalence during three periods.

Results

No significant differences were noted in the prevalence of LBP between the lockdown period compared to 12-month period in all four-year levels. More so, our findings showed that LBP prevalence among physiotherapy students was greater during the 12-month period compared to the lifetime period.

Conclusions

This study indicates that COVID-19 lockdown has no negative impact on the prevalence of LBP among physiotherapy students.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• lockdown
• low back pain prevalence
• physiotherapy students

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Margie Serling Cohn and Chaim Cohen for their editorial assistance.

Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Conflicts of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of Israel and received approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the researchers’ Zefat Academic College.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.