Abstract
Teachers play an important role in delivering health education to empower students with skills for healthy living to prevent non-communicable diseases. One of the common non-communicable diseases is hypertension that its development is highly associated with unhealthy lifestyle. A survey was administered to assess 130 pre-service teachers and 54 in-service teachers who were taking the health education course to prepare them for teaching the content of healthy living in Hong Kong. The assessment included their knowledge level of hypertension, attitudes towards lifestyle modification education to students, perception of knowledgeable to give health education. It was found that the knowledge level related to hypertension was generally below average among the teachers. Although they considered that lifestyle modification was an effective way to enhance students’ well-being, both pre-service and in-service teachers were reluctant to take responsibility for lifestyle modification education to their students. Lack of skill training was perceived as a problem. Teachers’ perception on health education should not be limited to the provision of simple information and advice. There is a need to improve teachers’ health literacy on some common non-communicable diseases.
Highlights
Lifestyle modifications include healthy diet and regular aerobic exercise that are more likely to be successful forHow to cite this paper: Cheng, N.Y.I. and Wong, M.Y.E. (2015) Knowledge and Attitude of School Teachers towards Promoting Healthy Lifestyle to Students
Teachers’ level of knowledge on hypertension and stroke was examined by 9 items developed from the health education content materials covered in General Studies and Liberal Studies; and common health knowledge related to predisposing factors, diagnostic criteria and preventive management of hypertension provided by the Department of Health [18]
Most teachers did not answer correctly that “Elevation of either systolic or diastolic blood pressure can represent hypertension” (75.5%), “Hereditary plays a major role in the development of hypertension” (76.6%), and “Hypertension is associated with Type II diabetes” (65.2%)
Summary
Lifestyle modifications include healthy diet and regular aerobic exercise that are more likely to be successful forHow to cite this paper: Cheng, N.Y.I. and Wong, M.Y.E. (2015) Knowledge and Attitude of School Teachers towards Promoting Healthy Lifestyle to Students. In Hong Kong, the core subject to provide health education for primary level students (Year 1 to 6, aged 6 - 12) is General Studies This subject integrates the content knowledge of personal, social, humanities education, science education and technology education [4]. Liberal Studies is one of four compulsory subjects to provide health knowledge to Form 4 to Form 6 students (Year 10 to 12, aged 15 - 18) under the new senior secondary (NSS) curriculum. This subject infuses science, humanities and technology in its curriculum. The government efforts on health literacy largely focus on education on health knowledge and project-based programs [7] [8]
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