Preventing back pain in schools: a dual epidemiological and ergonomic approach

There is no consensus on the risk factors for juvenile low back pain, and the results vary among studies. Risk factors, whether mechanical or psychosocial, cannot be considered in isolation. Therefore, a systemic approach of analysis is essential, focusing on the child as an individual undergoing constant physiological, cognitive and emotional change. This approach would make it possible to investigate real-case scenarios experienced by children and to consider all the constraints of their living environment. Therefore, this paper presents an ongoing study which looks at low back pain in children and the risk factors associated with the school environment. Consequently, a physiotherapist (GA) proposes to combine an epidemiological study in Lebanon, an approach commonly used to address this type of issues but not carried out to our knowledge in Lebanon, with an ergonomic study, an approach not investigated a lot to answer the question of low back pain in children in the school environment.