Preventing and managing illness in child care settings : a program evalutaion

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine a strategy designed to improve the health related knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of child care providers and early childhood educators using the PRECEDE model and guided by concepts from Epp's Health Promotion Framework. A one and one half day health workshop and written resource manual, Health Issues in Child Care Settings, were designed and tested to determine the effect on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of early childhood educators and child care providers. In particular, the study was concerned with how this strategy may improve the child care providers' and early childhood educators' knowledge about protecting the child's health and managing illness in child care centres. Additionally, the researcher was interested in a possible change of individual attitudes and behaviours in centres toward illness prevention and management. -- This quasi experimental evaluation study involved collection of data through a pre and posttest questionnaire administered to an experimental and a control group of randomly selected early childhood educators and child care providers. The questionnaire was completed by both groups two weeks prior to the workshop, which only the experimental group participated in, and again one month following this intervention. -- The 'Health in Child Care Settings Questionnaire' was developed as no existing instrument for this purpose was found. A secondary purpose of the research was to assess the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. -- The posttest knowledge and reported centre behaviours improved significantly in the experimental group. Within this group posttest attitude scores also improved, although not significantly. There were no significant differences in the pre and posttest scores for the control group. -- The findings of this study indicate that information about protecting children against illness and management of illness provided in a workshop and resource manual are effective in increasing child health knowledge and improving health behaviours of early childhood staff. The intervention was not effective in significantly improving the child health attitudes of participants. -- These findings support the hypothesis that health education aimed at improving the health knowledge and behaviours of those working in early childhood settings is an effective strategy. It appears that this strategy is less effective at positively influencing the child health attitudes of those working in early childhood settings. Further research is required to determine the effects of such interventions on attitudes and the degree to which attitude ultimately affects behaviour.