Abstracts Category : Other

A profile of patients presenting with spinal pain at Mahalapye and Shoshong World Spine Care clinics in Botswana

by Candice Armstrong

Dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for the Master's Degree in Technology: Chiropractic, Durban University of Technology, 2017. Title: A profile of patients presenting with spinal pain at Mahalapye and Shoshong WorldSpine Care clinics in BotswanaBackground: Spinal pain such as low back and neck pain, are common and can causesevere long term pain which results in a major burden on individuals and health caresystems (Woolf and Pfledger, 2003; Hondras et al., 2015a). Low-income countries oftenhave few resources for adequately addressing musculoskeletal (MSK) pain (Louw et al.,2007). Thus, World Spine Care (WSC), a non-governmental organization, opened two clinicsin Botswana to help improve spinal health care by providing access to MSK specialists(Haldeman et al., 2015). These clinics have been functional since 2012, and to date theprofile of patients attending these clinics has not been investigated. Studies on patientsattending chiropractic clinics have been carried out internationally (Hartvigsen et al., 2002;Giles et al., 2002; Coulter and Shekelle, 2005; Holt and Beck, 2005; Mootz et al., 2005;Sorensen et al., 2006; Garner et al., 2007; Stevens, 2007; Rubinstein et al., 2008; Martinezet al., 2009; Ailliet et al., 2010; Lischyna and Mior, 2012) and locally (Benjamin, 2007;Jaman, 2007; Mohamed, 2007; Venketsamy, 2007; Higgs, 2009; McDonald, 2012; Hitge,2014), and yet very little information exists on the patients presenting to clinics in the publicsector of Botswana. Demographic and disease profiles of patients vary by clinical setting,from country to country, and within regions of the same country (Hoy et al., 2010a). Thus,this study aimed to determine the demographic and disease profile of spinal pain patientsattending the WSC clinics in Mahalapye and Shoshong in Botswana.Method: A retrospective, descriptive study design was used to extract data from the WSCpatient files at the Mahalapye and Shoshong WSC clinics from 1 November 2012 to 31March 2016. The research proposal was approved by the Institutional Research EthicsCommittee (IREC); REC 53/16 (Appendix A), WSC (Appendix B) and Botswana MoH(Appendix C). Patient files included had provided consent for their files to be used forresearch purposes (Appendix F). Data recorded included demographic characteristics,factors related to spinal pain, the presenting complaint and the presence of co-morbidconditions. The data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS)version 24.0. Descriptive statistics in the form of graphs and cross tabulations were used todescribe the demographic and disease profile of the spinal pain patients. Inferential statisticslike chi-square, Fischers exact test for categorical variables and Independent students t tests for numerical variables were used to determine differences between the two clinics. Ap-value of less than 0.05 was used to indicate statistical significance (Singh, 2016).Results: The sample size was 65%Advisors/Committee Members: O'Connor, Laura.