Low back pain has been shown to be an important health and socioeconomic problem of
occupational diseases. Some authors in our locality have documented near to half (45%) of our
nurses having ongoing back pain. Various risk factors have been documented such as work
environment, manual handling, heavy lifting, repetitive work, and strenuous tasks. Also, a history of
back trouble, particularly if recent and prolonged, is highly predictive of new episodes of
prevalence of the back problem in nurse. So, if we can estimate the magnitude of the low back pain
in nursing students we can protect the future nurse from low back pain. The aim of the study: To
identifY the prevalence of back pain among the nursing student in Nursing Faculty at Assiut
University and determine the risk factors for that back pain and design proposal intervention
protocol. Subjects and Methods: SUbjects consisted complete cohort of 466 female nursing students
of Nursing Faculty at Assiut University using self-administered structured Arabic questionnaires.
Prevalence of back pain in low, mid, and upper back was determined. Full clinical history and local
examination of back in students who had positive back pain complaints for exclusion of other
causes of back pain such as pelvic, or major skeletal deformity. Result: The prevalence of back pain
was 54%. There is no significance difference between students who have back pain and no back
pain except for irregular menses. Prevalence of back pain over I year (chronic) was 33.5%, but
acute back pain (less than one month) was 43.5%. There were no statistically significant differences
between back pain and year of the study. Conclusions and Recommendation: Overall, our study
showed that back pain was more common among an Egyptian cohort than in other study. We also
concluded that preventive strategies might be started before enrollment in faculty of nursing,
continued during the time of faculty, and continued after graduated from the faculty by proper
distribution of nurse to different department according to the medical history and examinations of
back. Recommended that, a full and thorough examination of the locomotor's system after
graduation from the Faculty of Nursing for ideal distribution of nursing students to suitable
departments according to their fitness, also training program for the prevention of back injury
should be continued, as research have shown that training programs were effective in increased
knowledge of injury risk factors and a 30% in back injuries. Key words: Back pain, Prevalence,
Nursing student.