The relationship between anthropometric measurements and spinal pain in college students

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between anthropometric body measures and spinal (neck, back and low-back) pain, and effect of spinal pain on life quality in young adult age group. Participants who were college students' body weight (kg), body mass index (kg/m2), height, forearm length, upper-arm length, total arm length, fathom length, thoracic circumference, waist circumference, trunk length, sitting height, thigh length, calf length, leg length were measured in centimeters. Quality of life was evaluated with Short Form-36 (SF-36). Mean age was 20.30±1.25; 48 male, and 51 female students were included. Twenty-five of them had neck pain, 33 of them had back pain, and 31 of them had low-back pain. Our study found significant relations between neck pain and back pain, low-back pain, upper-arm length, total arm length. While there was relation only between back pain and low-back pain, there were no correlation among other measurements. Significant relations were found between low-back pain and height, upper-arm length, total arm length, fathom length, leg length. Neck and low-back pain showed significant negative relations between physical functioning, pain, general health subscales of quality-of-life as well as neck pain showed significant negative relation with vitality subscale and back pain with pain subscale. The decrement in upper and total arm length increases the occurrence of both neck and low-back pain; decrement in height, fathom length, leg length increases the probability of low-back pain. © 2014, Anatol J Clin Investig. All rights received.