Low back pain among nurses working in a clinical settings of Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis of a 19 years of studies
IntroductionBecause of the nature of the work, healthcare providers are prone to develop different musculoskeletal problems including low back pain and hospital healthcare workers are groups of healthcare workers who suffered a lot from it. The incidence varies between countries and professions. The situation is somewhat worsen among the frontline healthcare provider in many healthcare facilities. Nurses in Africa are arguably the most important frontline health care workers available in most African healthcare facilities, performing a broad range of tasks and working in settings where no other health workers, including physicians, are available. This situation is considerably important in the causation of work load. Nursing is listed among the highly risky profession for the development of low back pain and has been ranked with in the top tenth professions which have a great risk of having susceptible to low back pain.\n\nObjectiveThe aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to ascertain whether LBP is of a significant concern among nurses in African healthcare facilities.\n\nMethodsA comprehensive literature search of different data bases with no date limit was conducted from September to November 2018 using the PRISMA guideline. The quality of the included studies were assessed using a 12-item rating system. Subgroup and sensitivity analysis were performed. Cochrans Q and the I2 test were used to assess heterogeneity. The presence of publication bias was evaluated by using Eggers test and visual inspection of the symmetry in funnel plots.\n\nResultDuring the period 2000-2018, nineteen studies with a sample size of 6110 have been carried out. Among them, the lowest and the highest prevalence were found to be 44.1% and 82.7%. Both the highest and the lowest prevalence of low back pain were reported from a studies done in Nigeria. The estimation of the prevalence rate of low back pain among nurses using the random effects model was found to be 64.07% (95% CI: 58.68-69.46; P-value < 0.0001). Heterogeneity of the reviewed studies was I2 = 94.2% and heterogeneity Chi-squared = 310.06 (d.f = 18), P-value < 0.0001. The subgroup analyses showed that the highest prevalence of LBP among nurses was from west African region with prevalence rates of 68.46% (95% CI: 54.94-81.97; P-value <0.0001) and followed by north Africa region with prevalence rate of 67.95% (95% CI: 55.96-79.94; P value <0.0001) had the higher prevalence of LBP as compared to their south African counterparts, 59% (95% CI: 51-66.9; P-value <0.0001).\n\nConclusionEven though the overall prevalence of the present study is lower when compared to the western and Asian studies, it indicated that the prevalence of low back pain among nurses is on the move.