Prevalence of sacroiliac joint dysfunction in college students

Introduction and Aim: Sacroiliac (SI) joint is considered as one of the pain generators in students. Sacroiliac joint dysfunction is one of the common sources of low back pain, and many times the SI joint dysfunction mis-lead as the lumbar problem. Students who sit for longer duration cause stress in the sacroiliac joint. So, this study intended to investigate the prevalence and the contributing risk factors amongst students’ population with work-related musculoskeletal problems and also to identify the percentage of SI joint involvement in them.Materials and Methods: The study was conducted with 590 students from a private paramedical college, involving full time college students, with age group of 17-27 years, no recent falls or those not on current medications related to any musculoskeletal problems, and students without any congenital problems. Evaluation was done using Nordic musculoskeletal questionnaire along with a self-developed demographic questionnaire. The involved students were assessed using questionnaire and sacroiliac joint tests to identify the SI Joint dysfunction. Provocation tests included i) Sacroiliac joint distraction test, ii) SI Compression test iii) Thigh thrust test iv) Faber’s test and v) Gaenslen’s Test. Inference considered was presence of pain in more than 3 test indicates Sacroiliac joint involvement. On completion of assessment, a thank you card was given to all the volunteer students participated in the study. The collected data was filled and analyzed.Results: The study results showed that students with lower back pain also had complaints of neck pain. It was also noted that about 30% of the individuals were positive to the sacroiliac joint tests, among them 93 participants complained of low back pain.Conclusion: This study concluded that 61% of individuals were suffering with musculoskeletal disorders in the selected population. Around 30% of the low back pain participants complained of sacroiliac joint dysfunctions.