Abstract
AbstractThe objective of this study was to verify the short- and long-term effectiveness of the Elementary School Postural Program in the performance, generalization, and perception of daily school activities. The final sample consisted of 61 subjects divided into experimental (14 years ±0.93; ♀=22; ♂=10) and control group (15.38 years ±0.97; ♀=16; ♂=13), all participants attended a Brazilian public school in Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul. The postural program included 20 sessions over a 10-week period. In each session, participants discussed and practiced routine actions that typically occurred at schools. Eight other meetings were required for the completion of the pre- and post-tests. The experimental group performed significantly better than the control group in the short-term evaluations, although there were no significant statistical differences in the long-term follow-up evaluations. The children demonstrated a good behavioral response to the postural program; nevertheless, the knowledge had not been completely mastered after a year.
Highlights
Children and adolescents report a growing and alarming amount of back pain complaints
A comparison between the control and experimental groups in the post-test indicated that the experimental group presented a statistically significant difference (p < .05) across all items
The control group showed no modification in any analysis, whereas the experimental group, which had significantly increased its mean from pre-test to post-test, presented a significant decline (p < .05) from the post-test to the one-year-follow-up, as well as going back to the scores obtained at the beginning of the postural program
Summary
Children and adolescents report a growing and alarming amount of back pain complaints. Growing pains might be a natural part of the aging process, and the pain could be attributed to daily habits. Episodes of back pain were reported in 30% of a sample study (n=1503) carried out in Finland (Salminen, Pentti, & Terho, 1992). In Iceland (Kristjánsdóttir, 1996), a weekly back pain prevalence was reported in 20.6% of a sample of school students (n=2173). Similar results were found in another study (Wedderkopp, Leboeuf-Yde, Andersen, Froberg, & Hansen, 2001), which indicated that 39% of the sample subjects had suffered from back pain during the month prior to the data collection.
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