Relationship Between Physical Activity Level and Low Back Pain Disability Among Pregnant Women: An Online Survey

Abstract

Pregnancy caused numerous complications which may interfere pregnant women's lives. Most of the pregnant women complained on low back pain throughout the gestational period. Hence, the objective of this study was to investigate the association between physical activity level (PAL) and low back pain disability among pregnant women. A total of 126 pregnant women at the gestational age more than 21 weeks filled the self-administered online form which consists of socio-demographic status, International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), and Oswestry Low Back Disability Questionnaire. Chi-square statistical test was used to analyse the data. A number of 36.5 % of the sample analysed were cate-gorised of having minimal low back pain disability, 46.0 % having moderate low back pain disability, and 17.5 % suffered from severe low back pain disability. While according to PAL, 34.1 % scored the lowest level of physical activity and the rest scored moderate level of physical activity. There is no association between PALs with the low back pain intensity during the course of pregnancy. Therefore, pregnant women may still keep active during gestational period.