Effects of postural education on daily habits in children

A group-randomized controlled trial was carried out to investigate the effects of a postural education program on daily life habits related to low back pain in children. The study sample included 137 children aged 10.7 years. 6 classes from 2 primary schools were randomly allocated into an experimental group (EG) (N=63) or a control group (CG) (N=74). The EG received a postural education program over 6 weeks consisting of 6 sessions, while the CG followed the usual school curriculum. A questionnaire was completed by the participants at pretest, post-test and 3 months after the intervention finished. The outcomes collected were: correct use of sofa, stooping correctly, take care to sit correctly at home/school and frequent posture change on chair at home/school. A sum score was computed from the 6 items. To examine the effect of the intervention, we used repeated measures analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA); with baseline, post-test and follow-up outcome values as dependent variables, study group as fixed factor, and sex and age as covariates. Single healthy items mostly improved after the intervention and remained improved after 3 month follow-up in EG, while no substantial changes were observed in the CG. Healthy habits score was significantly increased at post-test compared to baseline in the EG (P<0.001), and remained significantly increased after 3-months, compared to baseline (P<0.001). No significant changes were observed in the CG (P>0.6). The results suggest that children are able to learn healthy daily life habits which might contribute to future prevention of low back pain.