Slouching only slightly associated with adolescent back pain
PainSci summary of O’Sullivan 2011?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided at the bottom of the page, as often as possible. ★★★☆☆?3-star ratings are for typical studies with no more (or less) than the usual common problems. Ratings are a highly subjective opinion, and subject to revision at any time. If you think this paper has been incorrectly rated, please let me know.
Does the way we sit affect back pain? Teens slouch a lot, and they do get back pain (though much less than adults). If posture is an important factor in back pain, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a connection … but this big study did not. Researchers looked for a correlation between sitting posture and back pain and the results were (predictable) rather unexciting. “This study demonstrated that a greater degree of slump in sitting was only weakly associated with adolescent back pain made worse by sitting after adjustment for other physical and psychosocial factors.” Hardly a smoking gun there …
original abstract†Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Conflicting evidence exists regarding relationships among sitting posture, factors that influence sitting posture, and back pain. This conflicting evidence may partially be due to the presence of multiple and overlapping factors associated with both sitting posture and back pain.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of slump in sitting was associated with sex and other physical, lifestyle, or psychosocial factors. Additionally, the relationship between the report of back pain made worse by sitting and the degree of slump in sitting and other physical, lifestyle, or psychosocial factors was investigated.
DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional study.
METHODS: Adolescents (n=1,596) completed questionnaires to determine lifestyle and psychosocial profiles and the experience of back pain. Sagittal sitting posture, body mass index (BMI), and back muscle endurance (BME) were recorded. Standing posture subgroup categorization was determined.
RESULTS: Multivariate analysis revealed that the most significant factor associated with the degree of slump in sitting was male sex, followed by non-neutral standing postures, lower perceived self-efficacy, lower BME, greater television use, and higher BMI. Multivariable analysis indicated poorer Child Behaviour Checklist scores were the strongest correlate of report of back pain made worse by sitting, whereas degree of slump in sitting, female sex, and BME were more weakly related.
LIMITATIONS: Causality cannot be determined from this cross-sectional study, and 60% of sitting posture variation was not explained by the measured variables.
CONCLUSIONS: Slump in sitting was associated with physical correlates, as well as sex, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors, highlighting the complex, multidimensional nature of usual sitting posture in adolescents. Additionally, this study demonstrated that a greater degree of slump in sitting was only weakly associated with adolescent back pain made worse by sitting after adjustment for other physical and psychosocial factors.
related content
One article on PainScience.com cites O’Sullivan 2011 as a source:
- Does Posture Correction Matter? — Posture correction strategies and exercises … and some reasons not to care or bother
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Effectiveness of customised foot orthoses for Achilles tendinopathy: a randomised controlled trial. Munteanu 2015 Br J Sports Med.
- A Bayesian model-averaged meta-analysis of the power pose effect with informed and default priors: the case of felt power. Gronau 2017 Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology.
- The neck and headaches. Bogduk 2014 Neurol Clin.
- Agreement of self-reported items and clinically assessed nerve root involvement (or sciatica) in a primary care setting. Konstantinou 2012 Eur Spine J.
- Effect of NSAIDs on Recovery From Acute Skeletal Muscle Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Morelli 2017 Am J Sports Med.