“Posture Play”: A Nursing Intervention Program for Children

Abstract

Objective: demonstrate the impact of a game to help teach children to be mindful of their posture. Nurses have a preeminent role in health education; hence, the importance of finding a way for them to add innovation to the posture schools that already exist, by including a novel training strategy: "a game." Materials and method: This is a quasi-experimental study with a time line. The sample was comprised of 215 pre-school children and first-graders [RD1] in a city in northern Portugal. The intervention was carried out through a game known as Posture Play, and a questionnaire was administered before and afterwards to assess its impact. Results: The results show a high prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints (48.8%) and an increase in correct responses subsequent to the intervention. There was a change in what the students knew about posture and their posture habits before and after taking part in the posture education program. Conclusions: Play is a useful and effective strategy educators can use in the context of nursing and should be replicated to other subject areas.