The Trend of Presentation and Profile of Patients with Low Back Pain Presented to Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (Atbuth), Bauchi (Published)
Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders, a leading cause of activity limitations and work absence resulting in great economics burden. Early multidisciplinary intervention and education of patients with LBP is associated with good prognosis. This research aimed to find the trend of presentation and profile of patients with LBP.A retrospective research design was used to review the patients’ case notes with LBP that presented from January 2010 to June 2017 and data on the stage of LBP, place of referral, sex and age were reviewed. Total of 121 files were booked and reviewed of which 83.47% were chronic LBP patients while 16.52% were acute. About 67.77% out of 121 were referred from health care unit (peripheral hospital) and 32.23% were walk-in patients with male dominance of 66.94% and mean age of all patients is 48.1years. On the other hand, only 49.59% were referred to physiotherapy unit of which 91.67% referred at chronic stage. The research reveals late presentation and referral for patient with LBP. Also shows poor engagement of physiotherapy in the management of LBP patients. It recommends the need for enlightening the public and other health professional on the role of physiotherapy in treating LBP especially at acute stage.
Keywords: acute, chronic and referral., low back pain (LBP)