Evidence map›Paper›PMID 12819283›Full record

ArticleOccupational and environmental medicine2003

Course of low back pain among nurses: a longitudinal study across eight years.

I Maul, T Läubli, A Klipstein, H Krueger

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Article in Occupational and environmental medicine, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
49citing papers in PubMed, 5 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

49 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  5. How do we define the condition 'recurrent low back pain'? A systematic review.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2010
    Pooled it
  6. Trial
  7. Article
  8. Pain manifestations in nursing professionals: a scoping review.Investigacion y educacion en enfermeria · 2025
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Observational
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Observational
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Low Back Pain and Its Associated Factors among Nurses in Public Hospitals of Penang, Malaysia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019
    Article
  20. Observational
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

I MaulInstitute of Hygiene and Applied Physiology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Clausiusstr. 25, Switzerland. Irina.Maul@web.de
T Läubli
A Klipstein
H Krueger

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

aimsTo describe the course of low back pain (LBP) among nurses across eight years.

methodsA longitudinal study was performed with a follow up at 1 and 8 years among nurses employed by a large university hospital in Switzerland. A modified version of the Nordic Questionnaire was distributed to obtain information about demographic data, occupational activities, and various aspects of LBP. A clinical examination and several functional tests were used to overcome the problems associated with subjective pain reporting. Nurses having answered the questionnaire on all three occasions (n = 269) were classified into subgroups according to their pain intensity. For each subgroup the course of LBP was recorded.

resultsLBP was highly prevalent with an annual prevalence varying from 73% to 76%. A large percentage (38%) indicated the same intensity of LBP on all three occasions. The proportion of nurses reporting repeated increase of LBP (19%) was approximately as large as the proportion who complained about repeated decrease of LBP (17%).

conclusionIt became evident that LBP poses a persistent problem among nurses. Over an eight year period almost half of the nurses indicated the same intensity of LBP, thus supporting a recurrent rather than a progressive nature of LBP.

Indexed as

Nursing Staff, HospitalAdultAnalysis of VarianceFemaleHumansLongitudinal StudiesLow Back PainOccupational DiseasesPain MeasurementSurveys and QuestionnairesSwitzerland

Identifiers

PMID12819283
PMCPMC1740571

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.