ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the main effects of physical exercise on lower back pain with the Short Form-36 Health Survey and Oswestry Disability Index scores.

University students between 18-25 years old who suffer from low back pain were enrolled in the study. Short Form-36 Health Survey and Oswestry Disability Index were used as the reference scales of lower back pain and quality of life, respectively. There are some questions in the questionnaire to scale the average comfort of the place they sleep and sit during the day, which is the result of the Personal Comfort Score. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for non-normal distributed variables. Correlation and Linear Regression were used to analyze data. SPSS 25.0 was used for all statistical analysis.

A total of 139 university students (94 females, 45 males) were included in the study. The median age was 20 years (IQR=2) for female students and 20 years (IQR=1) for male students. Oswestry Disability Index scores of female students were higher, while Short Form-36 scores were lower than the male students. Male students' physical functioning scores were higher than female students. Each one-unit increase in Personal Comfort Score is associated with an increase in the rate between the energy/fatigue (3.34 units). Body Mass Index considerably affected the pain and Oswestry Disability Score, an increase in one unit of baseline BMI upsurged the Short Form-36 pain score to 0.13, and Oswestry disability score to 0.55.

In our study, Body Mass Index is found to be associated with Oswestry Disability Index and Short Form-36 score, which are used for the severity of low back pain and defining the life quality and of patients. PCS had a positive correlation between energy/fatigue. In addition, There was a positive correlation between physical exercise and general health score.

Keywords: Low back pain, physical exercise, Body Mass Index, Short Form-36, Oswestry Disability Index