Everyday postures in idiopathic scoliosis: is there any correlation with curve morphology?

Methods Through parents and scoliosis experts’ consultation, we developed and validated a questionnaire for parents evaluating 7 UEP. Inclusion criteria were IS and age between 6 and 18 years. We collected 635 questionnaires from all IS patients coming to our Institute between September and November 2011 (n=435, response rate 98.5%) and through specific emails (n=199, response rate 15.7%). Since there were no differences between these two groups in gender, age, scoliosis parameters and answers, we evaluated all questionnaires together. We had IS group (ISG: curves >10°; n=462) and controls (CG: curves <10°; n=173). We divided ISG into three pairs of subgroups: L: lumbar or thoraco-lumbar curve: left (LL-SG n=65); right (RL-SG n=56) T: thoracic curve: right (RT-SG n=79); left (LT-SG n=11) DC: double curves: left L right T (LRDC-SG: n=215); right L left T (RLDC-SG n=36) We compared ISG and all subgroups to CG, and each subgroup to its matched pair (e.g. LL-SG vs RL-SG). All answers were converted as follows: one side: +1; the other side: -1; no preference: 0. Maintaining only the UEP with statistical differences, and checking for the preferred direction, we developed three index of symmetry (IoS) (one per pair of subgroups). Finally, we checked correlations between Cobb degrees, UEPs and IoS.