Abstract
Back pain in children is a reality and various factors are involved in its etiology. The study’s aim was to analyze the relationship between the use and type of backpack and pain in children. An analytical observational cross-sectional study was conducted among 123 schoolchildren between 8–10 years. Data on the participants’ weight and height and their backpacks were collected, as well as the way of travel to school and their physical activity during the week. The results indicated that all backpacks were large because the backpack’s height is longer than torso length. Participants who studied in a traditional educational system (62.60%) carried backpacks that exceeded 10% of their body weight. Additionally, 31.7% of the students presented pain. There is no significant correlation between the weight or type of backpack and the pressure pain threshold collected from shoulders muscles. Participants who carried backpacks heavier than 10% of their body weight did not have more musculoskeletal pain or a lower pressure pain threshold than the others, although they did report greater fatigue. All these topics should be debated considering the student’s social environment and the backpack’s discomfort to the children, even though no relationship was found between musculoskeletal pain and backpack weight.
Highlights
Back pain in children is a reality because between 8% and 74% of children and adolescents have suffered from it at some point in their lives [1,2,3,4,5,6]; and it seems that various factors are involved in its etiology [1,2,3,7,8,9]
Data collection was conducted in the primary schools Escola Joan Rebull (EJR) and InstitutEscola Pi del Burgar (IEPB) of Reus (Tarragona) during the months of October 2014 to March 2015
Most of the children use wheeled backpacks, and only the half of those that use them with handles carry more than 10% of their body weight
Summary
Back pain in children is a reality because between 8% and 74% of children and adolescents have suffered from it at some point in their lives [1,2,3,4,5,6]; and it seems that various factors are involved in its etiology [1,2,3,7,8,9]. The effects of carrying excess weight in school backpacks has been the subject of several publications, and there are great discrepancies in the reported results [10,11]. 10%–15% of the body weight of the child or adolescent [3,4,7,8,12,13,14]. Exceeding this value causes posterior displacement of the center of gravity, excess tension is generated in the muscles of the back of the neck and the back, an effect that is associated with spinal column pathology [15] and decreased lung volume [16]
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