Pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain: Prevalence and associated factors among women in their third trimester attending Antenatal Clinic at Kawempe Referral Hospital, Uganda

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: Pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain is one of the commonest complaints among pregnant women, occurring in about half of pregnancies. However, due to the benign nature of the condition, not enough emphasis is placed on its management. Unfortunately, many pregnant women are forced to silently endure this pain which affects their daily activities, work, sleep, and in some women, persists even after delivery. Disability and distress caused by pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain is increasingly being recognized as an issue that needs to be addressed, more so in the developing countries. General Objective: The aim of this study was therefore to study the prevalence of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain and associated factors among women in their third trimester of pregnancy attending antenatal clinic at Kawempe Referral Hospital, Uganda. Methods: The study was a cross sectional survey of 419 women in their third trimester of pregnancy who were receiving care at the antenatal clinic at Kawempe Referral Hospital, Uganda. These women were approached after their antenatal assessment and educated about the study. For those who consented to the study, their socio demographic, personal, and obstetric factors were collected using an interviewer administered questionnaire. Data Analysis: For Descriptive statistics, categorical data was summarized as counts, proportions and percentages and presented using tables and bar graphs while continuous variables were summarized using means and standard deviation for the normally distributed data and using medians and inter-quartile ranges for the non-normally distributed data. Prevalence of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain was calculated as the proportion of study participants who had documented evidence of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain. To assess factors associated, bivariate analysis was performed to compute odds ratios at the 95% level of significance and a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant using logistic regression. To assess independent association of these risk factors with pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain, multivariate analysis was performed, where all independent variables with a p-value of less than 0.2 at bivariate analysis and those with biological significance were considered for multivariate logistic regression. Associations with p-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The results of the analysis were presented in tables.

Study results: A total of 419 pregnant women in their third trimester were enrolled into the study. The prevalence of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain among these women was found to be 46%. Factors which were significantly associated with pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain in the third trimester were HIV positive status (p value 0.015), antenatal clinic attendance of two times (p value 0.034), obesity (p value 0.05), and having no source of income (p value 0.029). Conclusion: The evaluation of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain showed that the problem is prevalent. Predictors of pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain including HIV positive status, obesity, antenatal clinic attendance of two times (low), while having no source of income was found to be protective against pregnancy-related lumbopelvic pain. This study therefore supports the need for recognition of this problem and development of proper guidelines for its management during antenatal care at Kawempe Referral Hospital, and Uganda at large.