The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in africa: an overview of systematic reviews with meta-analysis including more than 100 distinct primary studies

Objective This overview of systematic reviews aimed to summarize the point, annual, and lifetime prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in African countries. Methods The CINAHL, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed were searched until October 6, 2023. Systematic reviews with meta-analyses evaluating the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain were included. The quality of reviews was assessed with AMSTAR 2 and the overlap among reviews was calculated. Results Six reviews were included. The pooled point prevalence rate of low back pain was 39%. The pooled annual prevalence rates of low back pain ranged from 54.05% to 64.07% among meta-analyses. The pooled annual prevalence rates of upper back pain, elbow pain, wrist and/or hand pain, knee and/or leg pain, foot and/or ankle pain, and hip and/or thigh pain were 27.1%, 19.7%, 24.2%, 25.0%, 20.2%, and 15.5%, respectively. The pooled lifetime prevalence rate of low back pain was 47%. A slight overlap was found among low back pain reviews. Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa were mainly studied in low back pain. The rest of types of musculoskeletal pain were only studied in Ethiopia. Discussion The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain is high. More than 100 primary studies have been meta-analyzed on this topic, underlying the high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain in African countries. Important methodological concerns were detected and discussed that can help researchers to improve and guide the future agenda in this field. Funding None. Review protocol . ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Clinical Protocols ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present work are contained in the manuscript and supplementary files.