Table 2.

Prevalence of Regional Pain among Participating Nurses by Location ^a,^b,^c

	Sao Paulo (n = 193)		Milan/Varese (n = 558)
Regional Pain	N	%	N	%	P
LBP in past month	87	45.1	274	49.1	0.3
NKP in past month	78	40.4	259	46.4	0.2
SHP in past month	80	41.5	185	33.2	0.04
Disabling LBP in past month	66	34.2	194	34.8	0.9
Disabling NKP in past month	41	21.2	161	28.9	0.04
Disabling SHP in past month	84	43.5	221	39.6	0.3
LBP causing absence in past year	24	12.4	95	17.0	0.1
NKP causing absence in past year	12	6.2	58	10.4	0.09
SHP causing absence in past year	23	11.9	40	7.2	0.04
Number of painful sites in past month
0	44	22.8	137	24.6
1	34	17.6	130	23.3
2	34	17.6	121	21.7
≥ 3	81	42.0	170	30.5	0.03

^aLBP: low back pain; NKP: neck pain; SHP: shoulder pain.

^bp = chi-squared test; for “Number of painful sites in past month”, Mann-Whitney U test was performed.

^cPercentages may not add to 100.0 because of rounding.