Evaluation the Relation between School Bag Weight and Backache among Primary School Pupils in Tikrit City

Abstract

Background: The weight of Schoolbag in childrens school is an important issue within education and general health . Schoolbag overweight can cause back pain in children, which may lead to chronic back problems in adulthood.The aim of this study is to evaluate the relation between the weight of school bag and backache among primary school pupils in Tikrit city.Subject and method: A cross sectional study is conducted inTikrit primary schools from the first of November 2018 to the end of March 2019 among primary school pupils .Sample size included 252 pupils, 130 were females and 122 were males. Two school chosen by cluster sampling , the pupils were chosen by stratified then simple random sampling methods ,the data collected by using a questionnaire which was administered by the interviewers the students were examined to exclude any present congenital anomalies.Results: From the total sample of 252 pupils 74 (29.4%) pupils report backache from those 43 ( 58%) were females and 31 ( 42%) were males . The sequence of the location of back pain was upper as (59.4%) backache then middle ( 33.6%) and very few pupils have lower backache (7%) . The relation between bag weight/pupil weight percentage and positive backache in primary school pupils from the total 74 pupils suffering from backache 41 (55.4%) has the percentage of bag weight / pupil weight more than 15% , 26 ( 35.1%) pupils had it between 10%-15% and only 7 pupils (9.5%) had it below 10%.The back pain is most commonly reported among those who come walking to the school.Conclusion :The study concluded that 74 (29.4%) of primary school pupils complained from backache among those 43 (58%) were females and 31 (42%) were males.