Iran Occupational Health

Background and aim: Low back pain is a prevalent musculoskeletal disorder associated with nursing profession. This study was conducted to compare the effects of Williams exercise and walking on relief of non-traumatic low back pain in nurses.

Methods: In this semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design, 100 nurses with chronic and acute low back pain and working in Ayatollah Kashani and Hajar hospitals of Shahrekord were studied between March 2015 and June 2015. The patients were randomly assigned to two groups of 50 each.  Group 1 were asked to perform Williams exercise once a day and group 2 was asked to walk for 20 min per day. The demographic characteristics, medical history, and (chronic and acute) pain severity were investigated before and after the interventions. The data were analyzed by SPSS 22.

Results: In both groups, mean difference in pain severity was significant after the intervention (P=0.001). Walking caused the pain of the nurses with acute low back pain to relieve more notably than the pain of those with chronic low back pain, while regarding Williams exercise, the pain relief was more marked in the nurses with chronic low back pain.

Conclusion: Walking is more effective on reluef of pain due to acute low back pain, and Williams exercise was more effective on relief of pain due to chronic low back pain. Combining these exercises and other approaches of complementary medicine may cause greater pain relief.