Knowledge and attitude of teachers and school nurses about upper respiratory tract infections among primary school students

Abstract

Schools are crowded places for the spread of infectious diseases among students, understanding the different spread ways of infections allows the preventive measures to be applied. The current study aimed to assess knowledge and attitudes of school teachers and nurses about upper respiratory tract infections among primary school students. Research design: A descriptive research design was used in this study. Sample: convenient sample of 234 persons who were distributed from six governmental primary schools at 3 districts in Minia governorate that were chosen by multistage random sample. Tools: A structured questionnaire that includes part one: demographic data related to studied group, part two: school teachers and nurse's knowledge related to upper respiratory tract infections and part three included their attitudes when they find a case of upper respiratory tract infections. Results: The mean age of the study sample were 39.4 ± 8.7 years, more than half (52.1%) of them their school place from urban area and 52.6 % of them had unsatisfactory level of knowledge. The majority of the study sample had positive attitudes toward actions must to do toward preventing the spread of upper respiratory tract infections. There were fair negative association between the age of teachers, years of experiences and total knowledge scores (r = -.299**, -.278** respectively). There were weak positive association between knowledge and attitudes of school teachers regarding prevention of URTI (r = .166 & .297 respectively). Recommendations: Increase the number of school nurses and provide a school nurse to every school, encourage future educational programs for school teachers, that focusing on: causes of upper respiratory tract infection, mode of transmission, sign and symptoms, understanding of the environment that affects the spread of the disease and ways of preventions.