Improvement of knowledge and postural habits after an educational intervention program in school students

Abstract

To study the effect of an educational intervention programme concerning knowledge and postural habits for back health on a group of 10 to 11-year-old students. Two groups of 5 th grade primary school students were selected. A control group (CG) (n=16), and an experimental group (EG) (n=16) who developed a back-health educational programme. A follow-up was carried out one month after the end of the intervention. The proposed educational intervention improved the results of both the knowledge and postural habits of the participants. The increase in the level of knowledge concerning health and back care in the daily lives of the EG (x̅ =6.32) was significantly greater than that observed in the CG (x̅ =3.86), with a high effect size (U = 29.500; Z = -3.717; p <0.001, r = 0.66). In daily postural habits, the EG (x̅ = 88.38) also increased their score significantly (U= 7.50; Z = -4.55; p <0.001, r = 0.80) compared to the CG (x̅ = 74.88). In both knowledge and postural habits, the scores increased in the intervention. The educational intervention programme studied improves both knowledge and postural habits for back health of the 5th grade students participating in the study. The Physical Education class seems to be an ideal environment to develop back health educational programmes.

Prevalence of Low Back Pain and Associated Risks in School-Age Children

“…Except height, the modifiable factors are related to lifestyle habits. Thus, the need for health education measures to promote and protect the health of school-age children and adolescents is highlighted because it is during a period that they start developing habits and attitudes that will continue into their adult life ( Miñana-Signes & Monfort-Pañego, 2016 ;Miñana-Signes et al, 2019 ). Therefore, in its practical application to school nursing, teaching healthy habits should be a priority because of its strong association with postural correction and LBP.…”

Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Reliability of the Back Pain and Body Posture Evaluation Instrument (BackPEI) to the Spanish Adolescent Population

“…Some authors and organizations advocate promoting the back health education research line and especially its implementation in school-based education programmes (12)(13)(14). However, in order to reach robust conclusions concerning posture interventions in schools, it is important to adopt a uniform suite of assessment instruments to measure the various contents in the investigations (BP prevalence, general and specific back care knowledge, daily postural habits, the student's and teachers' perceptions, etc. )…”

“…BEHALVES (17) was developed to assess back health-related postural habits in the daily activities of adolescents. The items were grouped into five categories: standing posture (items 1-4), sitting posture (items 5-13), use of backpacks (items [14][15][16][17][18][19][20], mobilizing heavy weights (items [21][22][23][24][25][26] and lying posture (items [27][28][29][30][31]. The items in the questionnaire were scored with: 1 = Never, 2 = Hardly ever, 3 = Almost always and 4 = Always.…”

Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Reliability of the Back Pain and Body Posture Evaluation Instrument (BackPEI) for Spanish

“…According this background, some authors and organizations advocate to promote the back health education research line and specially to implement school-based education programmes (11)(12)(13). However, in order to reach robust conclusions about posture interventions in schools, it should be important to adopt a uniform suite of assessment instruments to measure the various contents in the investigations (BP prevalence, general and specific back care knowledge, daily postural habits, student's and teachers' perceptions…) (14).…”