Background: School health services (SHSs) are a key constituent for health promotion among schoolchildren. School plays a very important role in SHS, as they apart from creating the health awareness, carry out morning health inspection of the students and periodic medical examination. Improved knowledge of teachers about the SHS will serve as a catalyst for advocating essential health facilities in schools.
Objective: To assess the status of SHS in government and private schools in North India.
Materials and Methods: This community-based cross-sectional study includes 50 randomly selected government and private schools by probability proportional to size, which were functional for more than 5 years. A pre-tested semi-structured schedule was used to assess the SHS. A pre-tested structured self-administered questionnaire was given to one school-teachers of each sampled school to assess their knowledge regarding the school health. Percentage, proportion, and χ2 test were used as statistical methods. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: Medical examination at admission was conducted in 2% of schools and daily morning inspection was conducted in 96% of schools. About 26% of schools never conducted the periodic medical examination of the students. First aid kit was available in 96% of schools. Teachers were designated for school health in 32% of schools while trained teachers were available in 22% of schools only. About 40% of school-teachers had a knowledge score of ≥50%. A majority of the schools were not maintaining the health records of the students.
Conclusion: Many schools were lacking in providing essential components of SHSs to the students. Therefore, it is a high time to overcome these
deficiencies.
Key words: School; Health; Children; Teachers; India
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