Background and purpose: Proprioception is one of the somatic senses which is used by the nervous system for muscular control. Inappropriate posture or pain could result in impaired proprioception. One of these poor postures is forward head posture (FHP). The aim of this study was to investigate cervical repositioning error in FHP subjects with and without neck pain and normal individuals.

Materials and methods: A case-control study was conducted consisting of people who had FHP without neck pain (n=31), individuals with FHP and neck pain (n=31), and healthy subjects (n=31). Cervical total range of motion (ROM) and then repositioning error in target angle (50% of full ROM in each movement( of flexion, extension, right and left lateral flexion, and right and left rotation were measured by cervical range of motion (CROM) device. Pain intensity was measured using the visual analog scale (VAS).

Results: Cervical ROM in FHP subjects was significantly less than that of healthy subjects in most movement directions. The absolute repositioning error of the target angle in FHP subjects was found to be significantly more than that of healthy subjects in most movement directions (p<0.05). The mean VAS score in patients with neck pain was 4±0.68.

Conclusion: FHP whether with or without pain may increase the cervical repositioning error. But presence of pain do not leads to higher rates of error.