Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude and Involvement of Public Primary School Teachers on School Health Service in Isi-Ala-Ngwa Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Children who spend large part of their lives in primary schools are exposed to varieties of hazards like physical injuries, infections, nutritional and emotional problems. School age is a period of rapid physical and mental developments. Children require healthy environments for appropriate adjustments to benefit maximally from educational systems. School Health Services were established to ensure healthy members of school community. Teachers play major roles in promotion and successful implementation of programmes. This study examined the knowledge, attitude and involvement of public primary school teachers on school health services.

Methodology: This was cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in 24 public primary schools in Isi-ala-Ngwa LGA, Abia State. All the public primary school teachers (264) in the LGA were studied. Data were collected using pre-tested self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using SPSS version 26 and presented in frequency tables. Chi-square was used to test association between categorical variables. P<0.05 was taken as statistically significant.

Results: Ages of participants were normally distributed with mean, median, mode and standard deviation being 35.7, 35.5, 35.5 and 8.87 respectively. From the findings, 169 (64%) respondents had good knowledge, 120 (38.6%) had positive attitude to school health services while 72 (27.3%) had good involvement. There was statistically significant difference between socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge of school health services and attitude towards school health services except for qualification of teachers and knowledge of and attitude. There was statistically significant difference between socio-demographic characteristics and involvement of health services except for teachers' residential area.

Conclusion: The respondents had good knowledge but poor attitude and involvement to school health services.

Keywords: Attitude; Involvement; Knowledge; Nigeria; School health service; Teachers.