VALIDATION OF THE POSTURE HABIT ASSESSMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (PHAQ) FOR THE PORTUGUESE POPULATION IN CHILDREN OF THE 2ND AND 3RD CYCLES OF BASIC EDUCATION

Resumo

Postural changes that may occur in children and adolescents are a risk factor for spinal dysfunction in adulthood. The aim is to validate the Questionnaire for Assessment of Postural Habits (PHAQ) in 2nd and 3rd grade students of Viseu and Leiria schooling. The PHAQ validation procedure was carried out in 3 stages: linguistic adaptation for the Portuguese population through the analysis and validation of the content of the questionnaire by a panel of experts; Application of the PHAQ to the school population of Viseu and Leiria e; comparison of PHAQ results with photographic still images analyzed by blind double format experts. The correlation between the 11 questions of the PHAQ, using Cronbach's Alpha (p= 0.536) and KMO (p= 0.682) indicates that each question is specific and should be analyzed individually, since the postural analysis is individual and not global. There were no differences between the postural analysis per image performed by the 2 experts (p> 0.05) and, between the answers of the participants with the answers given by the analysis of the experts (p> 0.05). The PHAQ is a valid instrument for assessing postural habits in children and adolescents. It can be a good alternative to image collection and is a method of detecting postural changes, with low cost, short application time and no risks.