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BAHRAINI SCHOOL TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF ASTHMA |
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| A score of one was given for the correct answer and zero for wrong answers or if the teachers did not know the answers. Since 10 questions were asked, the maximum score that any teacher could obtain if they answered all the questions correctly was 10. These scores were assessed as percentage scores. The teachers' asthma knowledge score ranged between one and 10 with a mean of 5.16, a median of five and a Standard Deviation of 2.185. A trial was made to relate each area of knowledge with the other variables. The results of the statistically significant relationships are shown in Tables 2 and 3 of which a few are: * women had significantly better knowledge in certain areas related to asthma than men * single teachers were better informed than married * surprisingly, the married teachers with smaller family size had better information than those teachers with a large family * teachers who perceived their general health as satisfactory had more knowledge than those who thought their health was unsatisfactory * teachers with a shorter duration of occupation had better knowledge in a few areas than those who had worked for a longer time * unexpectedly teachers not doing regular exercise had more information than those who engaged in regular exercise. |
Discussion Asthma is a life-threatening condition [12], which attacks school-age population periodically, debilitating them, and leading to a decrease in their educational attainments due to frequent absenteeism [1]. It often prevents them from involvement in physical activity and exercise [4]. Since most asthmatic children lack self-care and most do not use their anti-inflammatory inhaler [13], it is important that school teachers should be aware of this condition. A large number of these students may not be diagnosed early enough due to lack of knowledge/information among parents and/or teachers. Researchers have shown that teachers might find difficulty in recognizing and managing attacks of asthma, which can happen to students during school hours [5,7-9,14-16]. Such ignorance may lead to severe complications for the students. Our study shows that asthma knowledge among the Bahraini school teachers is deficient (mean score of 5.16 +/- 2.185 out of possible 10). Similar results were reported in Portugal (mean group scores: 17.7 of a possible 30) [1]. Although such findings were obtained by others [3,8-10], researchers in other part of the world indicated that teachers do not lack knowledge but poor understanding on how to manage the condition [5,7,14-16]. A report from Australia showed that teachers suffering from asthma had more knowledge than non-asthmatic teachers, but knowing someone with asthma made no significant difference to teachers' knowledge [17]. Studies have also found that teachers who had contact with an asthmatic individual or who had received previous training on asthma had a significantly greater knowledge [14]. Although such factors were not examined in this study, it is strongly recommended that they should be considered in future studies. |
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