THE SASKATCHEWAN HEALTH AND BACK PAIN SURVEY - THE PREVALENCE OF LOW-BACK-PAIN AND RELATED DISABILITY IN SASKATCHEWAN ADULTS

Study Design. Population-based, cross-sectional, mailed survey. Object ives. To determine the lifetime, 6-month period, and point prevalence of low back pain and its related disability among Saskatchewan adults and to investigate the presence and strength of selective response bia s. Summary of Background Data. There have been many reports of the pre valence of low back pain in different populations, and the estimates v ary widely depending on case definition. However, most studies fail to differentiate between trivial and disabling back pain, which raises t he issue of the usefulness of these estimates, No studies have yet doc umented the prevalence of graded low back pain severity and its relate d disability in a North American, general, population-based survey. Me thods, The Saskatchewan Health and Back Pain Survey was mailed to a pr obability sample of 2184 Saskatchewan adults between 20 and 69 years o f age. Fifty-five percent of the eligible population responded to the survey. Respondents were compared with nonrespondents, and the presenc e of selective response bias by back pain status was investigated by w ave analysis. the point and lifetime prevalence of low back pain was d etermined by simple questions, and the B-month period prevalence of lo w back pain was determined by the Chronic Pain Questionnaire. All esti mates were age-standardized to the Saskatchewan population. Results. T he authors estimate that at the lime of the survey 28.4% (95% confiden ce interval, 25.6-31.1) of the Saskatchewan adult population were expe riencing low back pain, and 84.1% (95% confidence interval, 81.9-86.3) had experienced it during their lifetime. Overall, 48.9% (95% confide nce interval, 45.9-52.0) of the population had experienced low-intensi ty/low-disability low back pain in the previous 6 months, 12.3% (95% c onfidence interval, 10.3-14.4) had experienced high-intensity/low-disa bility low back pain, and an additional 10.7% (95% confidence interval , 8.8-12.5) had experienced high-disability low back;pain in the previ ous 6 months. There was little variation in the estimates over age gro ups, but women experienced more high-disability back pain than men. Th ere was no evidence of selective response bias by low back pain status in the survey. Conclusion. Low-intensity/low-disability low back pain is a common problem in the general population. Approximately 11% of t he adult population studied had been disabled by low back pain in the previous 6 months.