Background: Indian classical dance is a physically demanding form of exercise which involves repetitive movements, the maintenance of sustained postures, balance, flexibility, coordination, strength and repeated loading of the lower limbs. The nature of these requirements may lead to musculoskeletal problems, especially if training is carried out with overuse, fatigue, an inadequate warm-up, bad alignment, muscle imbalance or improper training methods. Since dance trainers have a significant role to play in ensuring that the training environment remains safe, they affect aspects such as technique, the amount of work done, warm-up procedures, recovery and the way in which pain or early signs of injury are responded to. Nevertheless, little research has been carried out into the effects of structured injury-prevention education among Indian classical dance trainers.

Objective: The aim is to find out the effect of an educational program on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of trainers in Indian classical dance with regard to the prevention of lower-limb injuries.

Methods: A pre-test–post-test quasi-experimental study was carried out with 40 trainers of Indian classical dance. The participants were selected by means of convenience sampling. A questionnaire which had been reviewed by two faculty members from musculoskeletal physiotherapy and one from community physiotherapy was used to evaluate the trainers' knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning the prevention of lower-limb injuries. This questionnaire was completed by the participants both before and after they had taken part in a structured educational programme. The programme included topics such as the anatomy of the lower limbs, common injuries associated with dance, risk factors for injury, warm-up and cool-down routines, stretching, strength and flexibility exercises, balance and proprioception, protective measures, early management of injury, safe training practices and technical corrections. The knowledge answers were analysed descriptively by means of frequencies and percentages. In order to compare the attitude scores, a paired-samples t-test was used. The practice scores were first examined for normality using the Shapiro–Wilk test and then compared using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. 

Results: The 40 people who took part in the study were all women, the majority of them being between 18 and 29 years of age (77.5%), 57.5% of them teaching Bharatanatyam and 42.5% teaching Kathak. Seventy-two point five per cent of the participants had between one and five years' teaching experience. The answers given demonstrated favourable changes in a number of the injury-prevention areas. The percentage of people choosing the correct response in the case of overuse rose from 87.5% before the intervention to 100% after it. The attitude scores went up from 38.70 ± 3.31 before the intervention to 43.30 ± 2.83 after the intervention. A statistically significant difference was found between the pre- and post-intervention values (t(39) = −10.9, p < 0.001), the effect size being large (Cohen’s d = 1.72). The practice scores increased from 41.20 ± 3.95 to 46.60 ± 3.43. The Shapiro–Wilk test showed that the practice data were not normally distributed (W = 0.938, p = 0.030); hence the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was employed. A statistically significant pre–post difference was detected (W = 0.00, p < 0.001).

Conclusion: The educational program led to favourable changes in the knowledge, attitudes and reported injury-prevention practices of Indian classical dance trainers. The results show that structured injury-prevention education could serve as a useful approach informed by physiotherapy for increasing awareness and promoting safer practices in dance-training settings.