Prevalence of low back pain among elite athletes

ABSTRACT: The purpose of the research was to study the prevalence of low back pain among elite athletes in Shahrood city of Iran.The population of this study was 1300 athletes of 7 different sports, 299 athletes were chosen by Stratified sampling. Data were collected by Quebec standard questionnaire. The accuracy of questionnaires was confirmed by professor of Sport Science College. Reliability that assessed by Cronbachʹs alpha coefficient in a pilot study was 0.85.Statistical analyses of independent T and one way variance showed that there is a meaningful relationship between low back pain and sport field, gender.The least and the most prevalence of low back pain belonged to football and karate players, respectively. Results also showed that low back pain is more prevalent among the male(P < 0.05). Weakness in top half musclesʹ stamina and lack of balance are the most important reasons of backache, therefore our suggestion is that athletes can prevent backache by reinforcing tap half muscles and also improving the balance through some special trains.