Evaluation of low back pain, quality of life and functional limitation of drivers and nurses working in medical home

Evaluation of Low Back Pain, Quality of Life and Functional Limitation of Drivers and Nurses Working in Medical Home The aim of this study is to evaluate the low back pain, quality of life, and functional limitation of the drivers and nurses working in medical home. This study was carried out with 100 participants, who are 50 drivers and 50 nurses working at home health services of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality at between January 2018 and April 2018. In order to evaluate the severity of pain at rest and activity, the Visual Anologue Scale (VAS), for the measurement of low back pain disability the Oswestry Scale, and to measure the quality of life the Short Form Quality of Life Scale (SF-36) were used. Intergroup comparisons were analyzed with Independent t-Test in this observational, descriptive and analytical study. p <0.05 was statistically significant value. The mean age ± standard deviation was 36.54 ± 7.93 years, and the height ± standard deviation was 169.00 ± 8.40 cm of the 100 participant included in study population. The resting VAS values of the participants were 2.01 ± 2.26, the activity VAS values were 3.80 ± 3.00, and the Oswestry Scale total score was 12.62 ± 13.67. There were significant differences between resting VAS and SF-36 values of drivers and nurses (p <0.05). These differences revealed that especially nurses having more severe pain problems both at rest and at activity in VAS and SF-36 values. According to the Oswestry scale, the values of the nurse group are higher and there is a significant difference. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of VAS values (p> 0.05). As a consequence, low back pain of the drivers and nurses working at medical home increases with the activity, it decreases the quality of life. In addition, disability related to low back pain didn't cause any problems in their daily lifes. Keywords: low back pain, disability, nurse, driver, quality of life