The Effect of Educational Intervention on Low Back Pain among Air Force Personnel in a Military Organization

Lower back pain is one of the most prevalent and costly musculoskeletal disorders. This disease is an important factor in the use of health care, and a major reason for the long term disability in military forces, which affects the readiness of personnel and their return to work. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of educational intervention on the amount of pain and disability caused by low back pain in military personnel of an Air force organization. This study was a quasi-experimental study. One hundred six Air force personnel from a military organization with a non-specific chronic low back pain referred to a specialized clinic in 2015 were surveyed. The eligible participants in the study were randomly divided into two intervention (53) and control (53) groups. Instruments included the Oswestry Disability Questionnaire and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). The training sessions consisted of three sessions of 45-minute theory and two sessions of one-hour exercise sessions. The control group received only therapeutic routine intervention. The data were collected in the pre-intervention stage within three months after the intervention, and then were analyzed using SPSS 17 software. Patients (53 personnel of a military organization) in the intervention group had a 75% reduction in severity of pain compared with the control group. According to the low back pain disability questionnaire, the patients in the intervention group had 90% reduction in disability in daily activities compared with the control group, indicating an improvement in the intervention group (P <0.001). Implementation of educational intervention to reduce back pain and level of disability of Air force staff of a military organization with chronic back pain is recommended as an effective method along with other interventions.