A Comparative Effect of Child-to-Child and Health Educator to-Child Teaching Approaches on Nutritional Status in Elementary School Students

Abstract

Nutritional problems are one of the most important health issues among schoolaged children, and modification of the nutritional status in children is as well important.Objective: Present study aims to determine the effectiveness of child to child teaching approach as compared to educator to child teaching approach on promotion of nutritional status of elementary school students in Rasht city in 2014-15. Materials and Methods:This is an educational trial study. Samples were chosen by randomcluster sampling model through which 452 students aging 9-11 years were selected from third, fourth and fifth grades from elementary schools of different districts of Rasht. Tools consisted of demographic questionnaire and food frequency questionnaire (checklist) with 54 items on snacks. From 452 students, 188 students with unfavorable frequency were divided into three groups; 62 students in child-to-child group, 68 students in health educator-to-child group and 58 students in control group. An educational package (including pamphlets, booklets and posters) was taught by researcher on food pyramid, healthy and unhealthy snacks using role play and fruit festival conducted in three sessions each lasting 30 minutes for three level elementary students and health educators. Of course the control group received no intervention. Data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics such as Chi Square, Mann Whiteny ans Kruskal Wallis tests.Results: The differences of mean in score changes before and after education in child to child group was more effective than educator to child teaching group (P=0.001). Based on food frequency score obtained on nutritional status after teaching, the health educator to child group performed better than other groups (P=0.014). Conclusion:Study findings indicated that child to child teaching was close to the performance of health educators in relation to promotion of nutritional status and favorable food frequency. Therefore in attention to potential ability of children in teaching, they can improve school health programs along with educator to child teaching approach.

Comparison of peer led and teacher led oral health educational program among students

“…The study of Najjar Lashgari et al 16 (2013) revealed that a child-to-child education had been effective on improving the health awareness in students. In more clarification, the education by peer groups not only adds to student's awareness, but also health behaviour would be eased for any cognitive changes 18 . To our knowledg, some studies do not confirm effects of child-to-child education or peer education posetivley.…”

Empowering children for better health with child-to-child approach: a systematic literature review

“…Numerous studies have been performed worldwide to evaluate the impact of C-to-C interventions on various child health themes. These research studies observed significant improvement in post-intervention mean score in comparison to that of knowledge led by an investigator, training by an educator, by lecture method, by an adult, and education by the teacher in diverse health domains (Leena and D'Sousa, 2014;Farrokhmanesh et al, 2018;Anbazhagan et al, 2016;Sonavane et al, 2012;Karami et al, 2019). However, despite this wealth of evidence, an astonishing gap persists.…”

“…Predominantly, the studies were carried out in developing nations, with India leading the count with ten publications (Anbazhagan et al, 2016;Leena and D'Sousa, 2014;Mathew and Sujatha, 2018;Muneeswari, 2014;Narayani et al, 2021;Priya and Abirami, 2016;Pushpalatha, 2020;Rarichan et al, 2018;Sonavane et al, 2012;Walvekar et al, 2006). This was followed by three studies from Iran (Farrokhmanesh et al, 2018;Karami et al, 2019;Kaveh et al, 2016), and one each from Turkey (Erg€ un et al, 2013) and Egypt (Elewa and Saad, 2017). The only study from a developed country was from Ireland (Freeman and Bunting, 2003).…”

“…The systematic review included two Randomized Control Trials (Farrokhmanesh et al, 2018;Freeman and Bunting, 2003) and fourteen Quasi-experimental studies/non-randomized controlled trials/pretest-posttest experimental design (Anbazhagan et al, 2016;Elewa and Saad, 2017;Erg€ un et al, 2013;Karami et al, 2019;Kaveh et al, 2016;Leena and D'Sousa, 2014;Mathew and Sujatha, 2018;Muneeswari, 2014;Narayani et al, 2021;Priya and Abirami, 2016;Pushpalatha, 2020;Rarichan et al, 2018;Sonavane et al, 2012;Walvekar et al, 2006)…”

“…According to the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for RCTs, one of the RCT studies obtained a total quality score of eight out of a possible 13 (Farrokhmanesh et al, 2018), whilst the other received a total quality score of nine out of a possible 13 (Freeman and Bunting, 2003) (Supplementary file 1a). Seven of the fourteen quasi-experimental studies obtained quality scores of seven (Elewa and Saad, 2017;Erg€ un et al, 2013;Mathew and Sujatha, 2018;Muneeswari, 2014;Narayani et al, 2021;Priya and Abirami, 2016;Rarichan et al, 2018), and another seven received a score of eight out of nine (Anbazhagan et al, 2016;Karami et al, 2019;Kaveh et al, 2016;Leena and D'Sousa, 2014;Pushpalatha, 2020;Sonavane et al, 2012;Walvekar et al, 2006) (Supplementary file 1b).…”