High prevalence of foot problems in the Danish population: A survey of causes and associations☆
Section snippets
Background
The occurrence of foot problems such as pain, athlete's foot, nail problems, corns, callosities, swollen feet or bunions has previously been reported at 38–83%, increasing with age and most common among women [1], [2], [3], [4]. A study on an adult population in North West England found that, among the 63% with foot problems, 9.5% had disabling foot pain and only 16% had received any treatment [2]. The prevalence of foot pain reported in previous studies has ranged from 14% among teenagers to
Aims
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of self-reported foot deformities, pain in the foot, leg and low back in the general population and the possible associations between pain in the foot and lower extremity and foot deformity.
Materials and methods
The study was performed with the approval of the local Scientific-Ethical Committee North Denmark Region. The study group (n = 2100) was randomly selected by a computer from the Danish Civil Registration System. Participants were aged between 18 and 80 years in the Municipality of Aalborg, which has a total population of 157,610 (2005). Aalborg is representative of the Danish population as regards to rural and urban distribution. A total of 1671 responded (79.6%). The responders were
Results
One month period prevalence of foot pain was 30.4% (n = 508). Foot pain lasting more than 1 month was reported by 270 (16.2%) and pain lasting more than 1 year by 199 (11.9%). Foot pain was significantly more prevalent among women (34%) than men (26%) (P < 0.001). Limitations in daily activities caused by foot pain were reported by 333 (19.9%). 146 (8.7%) reported that they would have been more physically active without foot pain. Among subjects with foot pain, 213 (42%) had received treatment
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first randomly selected population survey concerning foot pain and deformity. We found a higher prevalence of foot pain in the adult population (30.4%) than has previously been reported in non-randomly selected samples [1], [2], [12]. Among participants with foot pain, 28.7% said they would have been more physically active without foot pain and 42% had received professional foot treatment within the past year. As physical activity is
Conclusion
Foot pain appears to be a more widespread and serious problem in Denmark than previously reported in the health and morbidity surveys. In the present randomly selected adult sample, the prevalence of foot pain was 30.4%. Limitations in daily activities caused by foot pain were reported by 19.9%. Among the participants, 11.9% had experienced pain for more than 1 year and 8.7% reported that they would have been more physically active without foot pain. Self-reported foot deformity was
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