Study population
This study was a cross-sectional study designed and done from February to October 2020. The target population were volunteers referring to physiotherapy and orthopedic clinics in districts 2 and 3 of Tehran, Iran with multistage cluster random sampling. Participants who were enrolled in the study were 175 men and woman above 18 years. Age, sex, education status, occupation, smoking status, menopausal status and delivery number type among women were assessed through a demographic questionnaire.
Having bone fracture in last 3 months, scoliosis, pregnancy and lactation and psychosomatic disorders were the exclusion criteria. Participants were placed into two groups: 85 participants with current musculoskeletal pain as cases and 90 participants with no existence of pain as controls. In order to prevent the effect of confounding factors as much as possible, groups were divided to 18-35, 36-54 and over 55 years through individual matching method.
This study was approved by Ethical Iran National Committee for Ethics in Biomedical Research under code IR.IAU.SRB.REC.1399.084. All the eligible volunteers were informed about the details of the study and in order to sign a written consent their rights were informed to them.