Effect of Student Health Champions Program about COVID- 19 Safety Precautions on School Members knowledge and Practices

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant professor, Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Damanhour University, Egypt

2 Lecturer -Pediatric Nursing - Faculty of Nursing- Damanhour University

3 Associate Professor - Community Based Nursing- Faculty of Nursing- The British University in Egypt (BUE) and Assistant professor, Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing, Damanhour University, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Schools are important environment for promotion of healthy behaviors. COVID 19
preventive precautionary behaviors become mandatory worldwide for everyone. School health
champion program is considered one way for school students to maintain and sustain their health
and wellness knowledge and practices especially now regarding COVID 19 and help to
disseminated it to other school members. Aim of study: to evaluate the effect of student health
champions program about COVID-19 safety precautions on school members’ knowledge and
practices. Study Design: A quasi-experimental one group pretest - posttest research design was
used. Study Setting: The current study was held in five preparatory shared-gender public schools
allocated in five educational administrations in El- Beheira Governorate, Egypt. Study Subjects:
The study included two subjects; 60 Student Health Champions were enrolled in the first semester
for 2020-2021 academic year and 40 School Members in the same schools. Data collection tools:
Three tools were used to collect the required data :Student Health Champions’ /School Members’
COVID-19 Safety Precautions Knowledge Structured Questionnaire, COVID-19 Safety Precautions
Practices of Student Health Champions’ /School Members’ Structured Observational Checklist and
Student Health Champions’ educational program satisfaction Structured Questionnaire Results:
Statistically significant relation was noticed between the students’ knowledge and practices before
the program application (r= 0.528, P= 0.000) and between their knowledge and practice scores after
the program (r= 0.250, P= 0.054,). Also school members’ knowledge and practices were improved
post health champion program (75%, p < 0.001). As regard students’ satisfaction towards COVID-
19 school health champion safety precautions program, the majority of them (95%) had general
satisfaction regarding the entire implemented program and they recommended other colleagues to
participate in such programs in future. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated the
effectiveness of the student health champions’ program concept in learning and education delivery
to other school members covering all aspects of COVID-19 knowledge and practices, consequently,
increasing their knowledge and practices significantly. Recommendations: Disseminate the
concept of school health champion in different schools with different topics. Encouraging the mass
media to highlight the benefits of the study on motivating school students to participate in volunteer
work in order to promote the health of others.

Keywords

Egyptian Journal of Health Care
Volume 12, Issue 1
March 2021
Pages 777-800

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics