Can We Trust the Literature on Risk Factors and Triggers for Low Back Pain? A Systematic Review of a Sample of Contemporary Literature

Table 2

Studies that seemed to study the onset of the “disease” of low back pain (first-time episode).

First author, year, country	Study design as defined by authors	Definition of LBP	Domains of associated factors investigated (number of included factors)	Types of analyses	Variables reported being linked to the incidence of LBP that were also credible RFs^†
Ernat, 2012, North America [12]	Database analysis	Acute LBP resulting in an initial visit to a health care provider	Demographic (3)	Multivariate	Age
			Occupational factors (2)		Race
					Different types of military service
Kanchanomai, 2015, Thailand [15]	Prospective	Annual incidence of LBP >24 hrs in the past 3 months	Anthropometric (2)	Multivariate	Quadriceps muscle length
			Demographic (4)
			Health (1)
			Lifestyle (1)
			Musculoskeletal examination findings (5)		Low back support while using a computer
			Psychosocial (1)
			Occupational factors (1)
Knox, 2014, North America [17]	Database analysis	First-occurrence LBP required seeking care	Demographic (3)	Multivariate	Sex
			Occupational factors (2)		Age
					Rank in military
					Type of service
					Marital status
Shemory, 2016, North America [28]	Database analysis	Medical diagnosis of LBP	Anthropometric (1)	Bivariate	None
Lifestyle (2)
Psychological (1)
Triki, 2015, Tunisia [32]	Retrospective cross-sectional	First-time LBP due to sports injury	Anthropometric (3)	Bivariate	Sex
			Demographic (2)		Fatigue (duration)
			Fatigue (1)		Some types of sport
			Lifestyle (1)
			Type of sport (9)

^†Present before the onset of 1st-time episode and analysed taking into account also other variables. The study truly investigated RFs based on our definition.