Need assessment and design of a web-based exercises prescription platform for low back pain caused by disc degeneration in Rwanda: Case study of the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali

Abstract

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a prevalent source of disability and is classified as the most onerous health condition on a global scale. Movement exercises and patient education remains the recommended first-line treatment for LBP. It was found that patient engagement is a primary hurdle in delivering efficient home-based exercise programs. The use of online exercises prescription tools increases practice and improves performance of home exercises. Objectives: The main objective of the current study was to assess the need for designing a webbased exercises prescription platform for patients suffering from LBP caused by disc degeneration and to design a contextualized web-based tool for prescribing and performing home exercises for LBP at CHUK. Methodology: Descriptive, cross-sectional quantitative study design was used and convenient sampling technique was used to select the total of 39 participants from CHUK. 30 were patients with LBP while 9 were physiotherapists. Ethical clearance was obtained from UR-CMHS (IRB) and at CHUK. A questionnaire with close ended questions was used to collect data. Data analysis was carried out using Microsoft excel and SPSS Version25. Web system was designed using HTML, CSS and Java Script for the Front End and PHP for the Back end with MySQL. Results: The study results show that 10% of the patients performed prescribed exercises within a week and only 10% performed prescribed number of repetitions. Regarding the reasons of not doing prescribed exercises, 66.7% replied that it was difficult for patients to understand how to perform exercises. 60% of the patients forget how to perform exercises. With regard to the need for designing a web based tool for prescribing and performing exercises for low back pain, a big number (80%) of the patients and PTs confirmed that it is needed. Conclusion: This study revealed that majority of the patients does not perform prescribed exercises for LBP due to difficulty with understanding how to perform the exercises, forgetting how to do the exercises, lack of motivation, and long period to prescribe the exercises. Additionally, most of the patients and physiotherapists need to use a web-based tool in the prescription and performance of low back pain exercises at home. Finally, a web-based tool for home exercises prescription and performance was designed