Evaluation of physiological stress due to Schoolbag carriage among children in West Bengal and some suggestive remedial measures an ergonomic study

Abstract

Schoolbag carriage among children is an intriguing cause of concern since it generates multiple manifestation of stress. Several studies have reported escalation in subjective parameters like pain occurrence and severity. Augmentations in ground reaction force, trunk inclination angle, muscle activity, heart rate, oxygen consumption and energy expenditure were experimentally observed. The study embodied exploration of the effect of schoolbag carriage among male and female children belonging to urban and rural habitat of high and low socioeconomic status (SES). The primordial task of collating baseline data regarding schoolbag weight and duration of carriage among children of West Bengal was conducted. The objective of the work was to suffice the prerequisite of devising interventions aiming to ameliorate the resultant stress experienced by school children. Majority of the children carried schoolbag load exceeding the recommended limit of 10% load of body weight (BW). Duration of carriage among the children belonging to low SES was prolonged than their counterpart from high SES. The influence of schoolbag weight and duration of carriage on reported pain was observed among children. The fallacy of posture analysis tools like rapid entire body assessment and ovako working posture assessment system involving consideration of absolute weight for generating scores of risk assessment was probed into with reference to children representing an array of SES. Occurrences of self-reported pain were identified to be predominant in shoulder, neck and back among children. Variation in reported pain was found to exist with SES of the children. Combined effect of schoolbag weight expressed as the percentage of BW and duration of carriage was found to be associated with pain reported by the children of different groups. Children from different SES were exposed to cardiopulmonary stress even due to schoolbag carriage of 8% load of BW. No significant difference was observed in means of heart rate, oxygen consumption, energy expenditure when assigned with 8%, 12% and 16% loads of BW between children of high and low SES (p>0.05). This study corroborates ground to re-consider the established load limit for children and suggests recommendation to accommodate changes in perspective.