Medical Students’ Attitudes and Beliefs toward Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common reasons for long-term disability among the world. Up to 70–85% of people develop a back pain during the course of their lives. It affects people of all ages and is generally caused by sedentary jobs, obesity, smoking and low socioeconomic status. Chronic low back pain (CLBP) harms one’s work effectiveness, psychological condition and social responsibilities, such as family life. LBP is considered an indication for medical rehabilitation and is increasingly becoming a significant factor in rising healthcare costs. The current LBP guidelines recommend health care professionals to encourage patients to conduct daily physical activity, which includes remaining in purposeful work and staying active daily. Health care practitioners (HCPs) who hold negative beliefs toward CLBP are likely to suggest advice against the present guidelines, including longdays absence from their jobs.On the other hand, HCPs holding positive beliefs are more likely to appreciate the guidelines.

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the beliefs and attitudes toward CLBP among medical students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at the King Abdulaziz University (KAU), between June–July 2018.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative cross-sectional study among 370 medical students at the KAU using an online HC-PAIRS questionnaire. We entered the data using an Excel sheet (2013)and then analyzed it using SPSS (version 23). We used chi-square, one-way ANOVA and summary and independent t-tests.

Results: In this study, we used the mean and standard deviation of the total score to compare our study (µ = 64.43 ± 11.34) with a previous study that focused on functional restoration HCPs at the Tufts University, USA (µ = 38 ± 7) using summary t-test (t = –25.316). The p-value was significant (<0.001).

Conclusion: We demonstrated the differences between KAU students and HCPs at Tufts University regarding the HC-PAIRS questionnaire score, which revealed a higher mean score among our participants. This led us to conclude that KAU medical students hold negative attitudes and beliefs concerning the application of CLBP guidelines. In light of this, we recommend raising awareness about CLBP guidelines among the medical students and the society at large.