Abstract
Background: According to Mayo Clinic (2021), joint pains can be defined as a discomfort, pain or inflammation that arises from any part of a joint, such as cartilage, bone, ligaments, tendons or muscles. Joint pain also most commonly refers to arthritis or arthralgia, which is inflammation or pain that comes from inside the joint itself. This pain is one of the major clinical problems, which at younger age are caused by inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis in particular, whereas older people mainly have it because of osteoarthritis (OA). OA is a serious and life-altering joint disease which not only causes pain.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, in which data is collected through a questionnaire comprising the demographic questions and items related to the population's knowledge about joint pain, its causes, effects on their daily lives and preventive measures. The survey was conducted in the Aseer region of Saudi Arabia. Data was collected from common public in the region. An informed consent was obtained from each of the participants. After collection of data, they were coded and entered in the SPSS ver.20 software for analyses descriptive statistics (mean standard deviation, frequencies, and %s were computed).
Results: Out of 582 respondents 493 are from Aseer, the southern-most region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. More than 95% of the respondents are aged 18 years or above, and over 90% have high school or university education. Almost three quarters of the sample population are males and the rest are females. As for economic status of the population, 41.2% earn less than Saudi Riyal (SAR) 3,000 per month, whereas only 14.2% earn SAR 15,000 or above. Over 36% of the participants are students and the rest are either doctors (5%), teachers (13.9%), soldiers (15.8%) or doing other jobs (29%). About 45% of the participants are single, whereas 53.8% are married and the rest (1.2%) are widowed.
Conclusion: Although it is hard to prove the clinical efficacy of non-pharmacological methods discussed in the study, their use as complementary therapeutic approaches to heal joint pains is popular among Saudi Arabians. Although chronic joint pains are difficult to treat and such patients have comorbidities, the patients are inclined toward non-pharmacological procedures like exercises, massage, relaxation techniques, etc. Physicians are recommended to encourage patients to use these methods, particularly because the positive attitude of the physician increases the likelihood of their therapeutic advantages.