Musculoskeletal Pain

Musculoskeletal pain continue to be substantial setback for public health thus, studies on musculoskeletal symptoms due to schoolbag use have been a subject of interest by many researchers. Musculoskeletal discomfort (MSD) can be described as tension, fatigue, soreness, heat or tremor (Van der Grinten and Smitt, 1992), feeling of effort, pressure in muscles, cramps, stiffness, ache, tingling/numbness, etc in muscles or non-muscular tissue (Reenen et al, 2008). Long term MSD or pain may lead to potential chronic pain, injury and stress. These negativities are associated with student’s absenteeism from lessons, low productivity and affects students’ well being and future careers (Alshagga, 2013; Buckle, 2005).

In the recent years, there has been

Students can wear /carry backpack in a variety of motions and positions, including walking up and down stairs, entering vehicles, riding bicycles, and walking over rough surface (Al-Qato, 2012). Students who usually carry their school bag on one shoulder are more likely to have low back symptoms (Pascoe et al, 1997). This may be due to the fact that unilateral loading causes more postural deviation than bilateral loading on shoulders. Carrying school bags on both shoulders has been shown to be the safest method ergonomically (Chansirinukor et al, 2001; Pascoe et al, 1997).

Duration of schoolbag carriage is also important factor to consider in connection with occurrence of discomforts. Although, study showed that a longer duration of carrying a school bag may increase the risk of musculoskeletal pain (Grimmer and Williams, 2000) yet, there has been little research into this factor. Time spent carrying school bags may vary owing to factors like distance covered by students from home or hostel to college. Students that live close to school or living in the college hostels spent less time carrying their school bags to college compared to day

The Standardized Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire developed by a team of Nordic researchers (Kourinka et al, 1997) is the most popular survey tool for detecting musculoskeletal disorders. The questionnaire has been used in similar previous studies on schoolbags and children and, hence is well tried and tested (Whittfield et al, 2005; Murphy et al, 2007; Trevelyan and Legg, 2011). The questionnaire reliability has been shown to be acceptable and it was found to have a kappa coefficient 0.74 to 0.80 that is 0.77. The sensitivity was excellent in all situations from 82.3 to 100%. The specificity was 51.1% to 82.4 % (Banson et al, 2012; Descatha,