Primary care consultation, hospital admission, sick leave and disability pension owing to neck and low back pain: a 12-year prospective cohort study in a rural population

Table 2 Frequency of outcomes, neck and low back symptoms and potential confounders in the study cohort (N = 1,347).

	n	%	mean	sd
Neck and low back outcomes
Primary care consultation	211	15.7
Hospital admission	25	1.9
Sick leave	73	5.4
Disability pension	39	2.9
Neck and low back symptoms
No neck pain¹	602	45.2
Previous neck pain²	152	11.4
Current neck pain³	579	43.2
No low back pain¹	473	35.4
Previous low back pain²	278	20.8
Current low back pain³	584	43.7
No neck or low back pain¹	269	20.2
Previous neck and/or low back pain²	224	16.9
Current neck and/or low back pain³	836	62.9
Potential confounders
Age, years	1,347		50.1	5.9
Farmer	794	58.9
Workload, units	1,327		198.7	84.8
Educational index	1,318		2.2	1.3
Compulsory school	516	39.2
Vocational school	430	32.6
Secondary school	151	11.5
College	96	7.3
University	125	9.5
Demands, units	1,227		12.8	2.7
Control, units	1,312		7.1	1.2
Body mass index, kg/m²	1,347		26.3	3.1
Smokers	285	21.2
Snuff users	192	14.3
Alcohol consumption, grams/week	1,343		24.3	28.6
Psychiatric symptoms (HSCL-25)	1,346		1.28	0.28
Specific back diagnosis during follow up	64	4.8

¹ No neck or low back problems before the study period.
² Neck or low back problems previously but not during the last year prior to survey 1.
³ Neck or low back problems during the year before survey 1, irrespective of previously or not.

ISSN: 1471-2474