PROMOTION OF HEALTHY HEART KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE INELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SHAHREKORD, IRAN

Background: our aim was to te st th e hypothesis that a one - year, classroom - based educationfor the third, fourth and fifth elementary school graders could change their knowledgescores about healthy heart.methods: it was a randomized and interventional study in elementary schools of shahr-ekord,iran in 20 06-2007. a total of 8 eleme nt ary schools, categorized by socioeconomic typesand male and female setting, were selected and randomized into control or intervention grou ps.subjects were 920 third, fourth and fifth graders, aged 9 to 11 years (50% boys and 50% girls).over a course of 8 weeks, health educators and general practitioner of the elementary schoolspresented two hours sessions per week on heart function, nutrition, and exercise for healthyheart and living tob acco free for the intervention group. the education program was based onheart power! program, an american heart association program. statistical analysis tests wrere:mann - whitney u test and wilcoxon matched- pairs signed ran k test and bonferroni correctionfor the two pair wise comparisonsresults: tot al heart knowledge at post test was in creased 40% in the intervention group(p < 0.01). difference in means of total healthy heart knowledge scores between control and interventiongroup increased from 12-4 point s in baseline to 24.6 points in post test ( total scorewas 30). attitude in int ervention group changed from 32% to 63 .9% after post test (p < 0 .0 1).after general and heart examination, we foun d 69 students with abnormal heart sounds and finallyby referred to pediatric cardiologist , for 18 them heart diseases were diagnosed.conclusion: it can be concluded that the classroom - based cardiovascular health promotionhad a significant effect on th e healthy heart knowledge. therefore, schools provide an excellentsetting for introducing comprehensive healthy heart education and promotion of cardiovascularhealth to th e general population.