Evaluation of the Effectiveness of "School Health Nursing Program" Implemented Under the Leadership of Nurse

Today's health systems are of great importance in protecting and improving the health of children. It is very important for children to take their own health responsibilities in giving them positive health behavior. The rapid advancement of technology, cultural differences, changing living conditions, and increasing chronic diseases show us that people should have the authority to make decisions about their own health, starting from primary school and childhood. All these bring the concept of health literacy to the fore. According to WHO, the concept of health literacy is the cognitive and social skills about individuals' ability to access, understand and use information and their desires in order to protect and improve well-being in health. It is very important to provide health education appropriate to age groups for the development of health literacy in children. School-based health education is necessary for health promotion in the 21st century. In this context, school health nurses gain great importance. School health nursing is of great importance for children to acquire positive health behaviors and to take their own health responsibilities . In addition to the importance of school health nursing, it is also important to know the health literacy levels of children. Studies show that children's health literacy levels are low. There are very few scales that measure health literacy in children. There is no scale developed to measure health literacy in primary school students in the literature. Among the topics given to children in health education, nutrition, physical activity, first aid, individual hygiene, protection from accidents and prevention of violence are among the most important.

In the development of positive health behaviors, healthy nutrition and regular physical activity behaviors, the education given at school age is very important. In this sense, important responsibilities fall on school health nurses. Although there are no school health nursing practices in Northern Cyprus, there are no training programs to develop positive health behaviors. With this study we have planned, it is aimed to implement a training program within the scope of the "School Health Nursing Program" in primary schools selected as a pilot in Northern Cyprus and to form the foundations of School health nursing in our country in line with its results. In addition, measurement tools specific to age groups are needed to measure the level of health literacy, especially in school-age children. Therefore, another purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of this program on children by implementing an education program within the scope of the "School Health Nursing Program", which will be a first in our country, and to develop the "Child Health Literacy Scale" and to make it a significant contribution to science with this scale.

GOAL

This study was planned to evaluate the effectiveness of the school health nursing program administered to primary school students under the leadership of a nurse and to develop the "Child Health Literacy Scale".

MATERIALS AND METHODS

1. Type of Research

   The research will be carried out in accordance with the methodological and randomized controlled experimental research design.

2. Place and time of the research

   The research will be carried out in two stages in state primary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education and Culture located within the borders of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, following the approval of the Ethics Committee and institutional permissions.

3. The universe and sample of the research

The Universe of the research will be formed by the children studying in state primary schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education and Culture of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus between the dates of the research. The study, which is planned in two stages, will be studied with two sample groups.

In the first stage: 4th grade students of two primary schools in the Kyrenia region will participate in the selection of the school where the "School Health Nursing Application Program", which is included in the first stage of the research, will be applied. In the study, it is expected that there will be a moderate increase in the scale scores of the experimental group children after the education and the effect size is high (d = 0.50) according to the Cohen scale. Accordingly, the sample size required for 80% power at d = 0.50 and α = 0.05 was determined as 30 persons for the experimental group to approach the normal distribution by using G * Power 3.1.9.2 software. Similarly, 30 people will be taken for the control group, and the sample size is 60 people, 30 being experimental and 30 control groups. The experimental and control group students will be determined with the MedCalc software using the block randomization technique.

In the second stage, the development of the "Child Health-Literacy Scale" will be carried out with 6458 students in the 9-11 age group who attend 4th and 5th grades of primary schools. Students will be determined by simple random sampling method among 4th and 5th grade students of primary schools in Kyrenia, Nicosia, Güzelyurt, Famagusta and İskele districts.