Prevalence Of Disability And Fear Avoidance Beliefs

• Sujects:

Three hundred eighty -one egyptian physical therapists of both genders with age 25-55 years old in Cairo governorate who have worked for at least two years.The study will be conducted to investigate the prevalence of disability and fear avoidance beliefs among egyptian physical therapists with chronic non-specific low back pain (CNSLBP) , and BMI 18:30 kg/m2 and data will be collected through self-administered questionnaires distributed electronically.Participants were recruited from various public and private physical therapy centers and hospitals in Cairo .

• Instrumentation for assessment:

Patients will be assessed by:

• Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire ( FABQ ) for assessing fear-avoidance beliefs in individuals with low back pain
• Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) for measurement of disability in patients with low back pain

Assessment procedures:

This study will include 381 subjects both male and female physical therapists who have worked for at least two years. The assessment will be performed one time for each participant by the same physiotherapist. All participants will first be checked to see if they are matching the inclusion and exclusion criteria after that they will inform consent.

A pretested, self-administered, structured questionnaire will be used for data collection. The survey examined demographic data, gender, age, weight, height, smoking habits, drinking habits, marital status, history of LBP in the last year, the duration of the last LBP, pain consultation at a hospital, history of LBP treatment in the last year, current occupation, history of heavy physical labor, duration of driving or riding, history of exercise, duration of sitting, and duration of standing .

• The Fear avidance beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ): will be sent to physical therapists working in Cairo. Participants will be selected from public and private physical therapy clinics in Cairo. Responses will be collected by an electronic survey tool (i.e.,Google Form) and exported for statistical analysis with SPSS.

-Fear avoidance beliefs will be measured using the FABQ. It contains 16 items, scored from 0-6 (completely agree to completely disagree). It consists of two subscales, the physical activity subscale (FABQ PA), scored out of 24 (scores of ≤15 indicate low and >15 indicate high fear avoidance), and work (FABQ W), scored out of 42 points (scores of ≤34 indicate low and >34 indicate high fear avoidance) .

• Oswestry Disability Index (ODI): The ODI will be used to assess the functional disability in NSCLBP.

• The questionnaire examines the level of disability in 10 everyday activities of daily living.
• Pain intensity -Personal care -Lifting
• Walking -Sitting -Standing
• Sleeping -Sex (if applicable)
• Social -Travel
• Each component is assigned a value between 0 and 5, with 5 indicating the most disability. The index is calculated by dividing the total score by the range of scores and multiplying the result by 100 to get the index's percentage value .
• Scores are calculated as follows: [total score/(5 x number of questions answered)] x 100% (Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, n.d.).
• Interpretation:
• Functional disability will be classified into the following five classes:
• minimal disability (0-20)
• moderate disability (21-40)
• severe disability (1-60)
• crippled (61-80); and
• being bed-bound (81-100)

Inclusion criteria

• Male and female Egyptian physical therapists who have worked for at least two years.
• Working age from 25 to 55 years .
• Those experiencing localized pain from the lower margin of the twelfth rib to the lower gluteal folds for more than three months were included in the NS-CLBP .
• Physical therapists who are fluent in English language.
• BMI 18:30 kg/m2 .

Exclusion criteria

• Participants with a history of orthopaedic spine disease or surgery were excluded .
• cauda equina lesion, malignancy, infection, history of spinal surgeries, pregnancy, pain related to mensuration, and mental illness.