Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, and Beliefs of Lebanese and Palestinian School Children in Lebanon

Abstract

The indicators for health risk factors among school children in Lebanon associated with increased mortality and morbidity were higher than the global percentage based on WHO (2014) statistics. Knowing that the Ministry of Education in Lebanon has been trying to include health education in the national school curriculum since the last reform in 1997, this qualitative exploratory study analyzed the students' arguments resulting from focus group discussions to identify their level of knowledge, attitudes and perceptions and to provide suggestions for improving the national textbooks and teaching practices. Data were collected through focus group discussions with grade 5 students in 2 schools: Lebanese public school and UNRWA Palestinian School. The content analysis technique was used to perform the analysis and interpretation of data. Data was coded based on criteria from the Rational Model as well as the Health Belief Model. The study found, among other things, that students in both schools acquired the knowledge present in the textbooks about the benefits of balanced nutrition but they gave inaccurate and incomplete justifications with no scientific reasoning. Regarding attitudes, they show negative attitudes toward prefer unhealthy food over healthy ones. Some of their practices were healthy but unhealthy snacks, skipping breakfast, drinking big amounts of soft drinks were prevalent. The arguments of the students in both schools also showed some social related practices as related to the opinions, behavior, advice, and support of the people surrounding students influence their feelings and behavior, and the students have a reciprocal effect on those people.

Les conceptions d’enseignants de 31 pays sur la santé, entre approches biomédicale et socio-écologique

“…En effet, chaque situation locale ne peut être résumée en une ou deux phrases. Par exemple, la thèse de Fuddah (2014) a porté sur l'éducation à la santé dans des écoles au Liban, soit des écoles publiques libanaises, soit des écoles dans des camps palestiniens : la situation sanitaire est assez différente dans les deux cas, mais les conceptions des élèves, analysées par leurs participations à des « focus groups » 1 , ne diffèrent guère (Fuddah, Khalil & Clément, 2015). Dans la plupart des autres pays, la majorité des recherches porte sur l'implémentation de l'éducation à la santé en tant que discipline spécifique, ou au sein d'autres disciplines scolaires, ainsi que sur l'intérêt de faire intervenir dans les écoles d'autres acteurs que les enseignants, comme des spécialistes de la médecine.…”

Development of a Valid and Reliable Scale to Assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) on Frailty, Nutrition and Exercise among Malaysian Elderly

“…In this context, knowledge can be described as a set of understanding, while attitude is the way a person views something or behaves towards it, and practice is an observable action towards the stimulus (6,7). The KAP model proposes that increasing a person's knowledge will alter behaviour.…”