• Eur Spine J · Apr 2024

    Multicenter Study

    Subgroup characteristics in care workers with low back pain: cluster analysis-based severity of central sensitivity syndromes and low back pain.

    • Hayato Shigetoh, Teppei Abiko, Michie Ohyama, Eiji Sakata, and Shin Murata.
    • Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Health Science, Kyoto Tachibana University, 34 Yamada-cho, Oyake, Yamashina-ku, Kyoto, 607-8175, Japan. shigeto@tachibana-u.ac.jp.
    • Eur Spine J. 2024 Apr 1; 33 (4): 144714541447-1454.

    PurposeThis multicentre, collaborative, cross-sectional study aimed to explore the characteristics of subgroups based on central sensitivity syndromes (CSSs) and low back pain (LBP) severity. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between the classified subgroups and work status among the care workers.Patients And MethodsIn 660 care workers, we assessed LBP intensity, pain duration, pain sites, CSS (using the central sensitization inventory-9), psychological factors (using the pain catastrophizing scale and pain self-efficacy questionnaire), and work status (interference, amount of assistance, frequency of assistance, and work environment). We used hierarchical clustering analysis to divide the participants into subgroups based on CSS and LBP severity. We further performed multiple comparison analyzes and adjusted the residuals (chi-square test) to reveal differences between clusters.ResultsCare workers with LBP were divided into four subgroups (Cluster 1: no CSS and mild LBP, Cluster 2: mild CSS and severe LBP, Cluster 3: mild CSS and mild LBP, Cluster 4: severe CSS and moderate LBP). Cluster 4 tended to have a higher number of pain sites, severe pain catastrophizing, and poor pain self-efficacy. In addition, Cluster 4 showed a higher frequency of assistance and an inadequate working environment and equipment. By contrast, Cluster 2 tended to have low pain self-efficacy. In addition, Cluster 2 experienced the highest work-related interference compared with any of the subgroups.ConclusionOur findings suggested that the severe LBP and severe CSS subgroups had common and different characteristics concerning psychological factors and work status, including interference with work. Our results may help to improve the management of care workers with LBP.© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…