Prevalence and associated occupational factors for low back pain among the bank employees in Dhaka City

Objective Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the common health problems among full-time office employees that causes employees absenteeism from work. The purpose of the study is to identify the association between occupational factors and LBP among full-time bank employees in Dhaka City. Materials and Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study with 593 full-time bank employees. The one-month complaints of LBP were administered by a musculoskeletal subscale of subjective health complaints by Eriksen et al. A logistic model was performed to identify variables associated with LBP, and a random forest technique was performed to identify the top 5 important variables. Results The one-month prevalence for LBP was found 36.6% among the bank employees and the prevalence was high (46.6%) for the 41 to 59-year-old age-group. The multiple logistic regression analysis indicates that age (41-59 years) (OR:2.11, CI=1.21-3.74), obesity (OR:2.06, CI=1.01-4.21) and long working hours (>9 hours) (OR:1.42, CI=1.01-2.0) are positively associated with LBP. Age and length of employment have a positive correlation of 0.87. The random forest technique identifies the top 5 important variables are, age, length of employment, long office hours, presence of chronic illness, and physical activity. Conclusion LBP is highly prevalent in full-time bank employees. The occupational factors like length of employment (>10 years) and long working hours (>9 hours) play a significant role in developing LBP among the bank employees. Moreover, the factors like age, chronic illness, obesity and physical activity should be taken into account in the prevention of LBP in bank employees.