Prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in Azar cohort population in Northwest of Iran

Abstract

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are considered as major public health problems. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of MSDs in Azar cohort population in northwest of Iran. Azar cohort study is a state level of a national cohort project (PERSIAN) which began in 2014. All adults over 35 years old in Khamene city in East Azarbaijan province were recruited for the pilot phase of the Azar cohort. For the purpose of the current study, a total of 952 subjects age range of 35-70 who completed the Community Oriented Program for the Control of Rheumatic Disease (COPCORD) questionnaire as supplementary were included. 299 subjects had MSDs and were introduced to the rheumatologist, only 237 of them referred for further assessment. 33.4% of subjects had MSDs within the past 7 days. The most frequent complaint was pain and the most common sites of complaints were knee, lumbar spine, and shoulder, respectively. Osteoarthritis was the most common rheumatic disease (53.2%) and the knee was the most common region affected (47.7%) followed by low back pain (28.2%). Osteoarthritis and knee osteoarthritis were present in 56.1 and 51.8% of females and 46.6 and 38.4% of males, respectively. Furthermore, low back pain was present in 32.9% of males and 26.2% of females. Peri-arthritis was more prevalent in males (12.3%), whilst fibromyalgia, psychologic pain, and heel spur were prevalent among females (9.1, 5.1, and 1.2%, respectively). Rheumatoid arthritis was observed in 1.4% of males and 1.8% of females, respectively. Prevalence of MSDs is very high in this area. Therefore, it calls for action by heath officials and professionals to plan for appropriate programs of prevention and management of MSDs in society.

A Review of the Prevalence and Unmet Needs in the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis in Africa and the Middle East

“…No conference abstracts were identified from searches of the congress databases. The results included a systematic review and metaanalysis of studies conducted in Africa between 1975 through 2014 [12] and 13 publications of data from individual countries (two of which were included in the 2014 meta-analysis) [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. An additional three publications reported RA-related data from 2010 [5], 2013 [11], and 2017 [7] from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study.…”

“…Five country-level studies reported prevalence according to sex. In those, prevalence rates were consistently higher among women than men, but women:men ratios varied from 1.3:1 (Iran) [15] to 9:1 (Turkey) [18], 11:1 (Dubai) [19], 11:1 (Saudi Arabia) [22], and 12.5:1 (Algeria) [21]. A separate study of patient characteristics in Egypt reported a ratio of 3:1 [27], which also supports the understanding that patient populations vary considerably across the regions of Africa and the Middle East.…”

“…This could explain the low prevalence found for this region, where robust data sources for some countries are limited. On the other hand, many of the publications reporting county-level prevalence of RA are based on self-reported data from small regions [14,15,17,21,22,24], which may also result in skewed estimates. This uncertainty may be reflected in secular trends, too.…”

The protocol of a population-based prospective cohort study in southwest of Iran to analyze common non-communicable diseases: Shahrekord cohort study

“…In certain centers of the PERSIAN Cohort, a number of these variables are studied. For example, in the Yazd Cohort Study, spirometry is taken, in the Azar Cohort Study, rheumatic diseases are investigated [ 38 ], and in Fasa Cohort Study, body composition is measured and EKGs are taken [ 39 ]. Enrolling people from both urban and rural areas is another strength of the SCS that can help us achieve highly valuable evidence on different aspects of NCDs’ etiologies and factors associated with living in rural and urban areas.…”

Treatment of palindromic rheumatism: A systematic review

“…8 In the Azar cohort, we reported the prevalence of PR at 4 in 1000 of general population. 9 Ansell and Bywaters suggested that in 10 to 15 percent of patients with RA, the disease began after a period of palindromic symptoms.10 In a recent report, RA was started as PR in 18% of patients. 11 Secondly, in addition to disrupting lifestyle with frequent painful attacks, PR progresses to other autoimmune connective tissue diseases (CTDs), especially RA.…”