Facts of <i>yogo</i> Teacher-Provided Health Guidance

<p> The purpose of this study was to clarify facts of yogo teacher-provided health guidance according to school types. </p><p> An anonymous self-administered questionnaire about attributes (school type, school size, years of experience), frequency of individual health guidance for 11 individual items, presence or absence of group health guidance in the past year, annual frequency and contents of group guidance, and frequency of providing advice to parents and guardians (individual or group) was administered to 927 yogo teachers in 2010.</p><p> The 927 yogo teachers were from: preschools (5.7％), elementary schools (53.3％), junior high schools (23.1％), high schools (12.9％), and special needs schools (3.9％) .</p><p> In the higher education settings, the frequency and contents of group guidance decreased, whereas the frequency of individual guidance increased, and the contents covered a larger variety of topics. Group guidance was replaced with individual guidance in the higher education settings to reflect the development and health issues of the students.</p><p> Group guidance was performed by 90.6％ of preschools, 87.7％ of elementary schools, 47.7％ of junior high schools, and 38.3％ of high schools, which indicated that the frequency was significantly greater in preschools and elementary schools (p＜0.001) compared with junior high and high schools. The annual frequency was similar. Group guidance covered the 10 themes of “healthy life,” “oral health,” “diseases and prevention measures,” “sex education,” “safe daily life (including injuries),” “health of the eyes, ears, and nose,” “inhibition of alcohol/tobacco/drug abuse,” “mechanism and growth/development of the body,” “mental health,” and “others.”</p><p> On the other hand, individual guidance mainly focused on “management of medical or surgical symptoms” and “basic lifestyle”regardless of the school types. The frequency of individual guidance for almost all items was greater in junior high and high schools compared with in preschools and elementary schools, and junior high and high schools provided significantly more guidance for “mental health,” “inhibition of alcohol/tobacco/drug abuse,” “sex education,” and “obesity and dieting” compared with the other school types (p＜0.001) .</p><p> Preschools that frequently provided group guidance gave advice to parents and guardians more frequently compared with those that provided guidance less frequently (p＜0.01) . Likewise, elementary and junior high schools that frequently provided individual guidance also gave advice more frequently to parents and guardians (p＜0.01) . However, no significant association between the frequency of providing health guidance to students and the frequency of providing advice to parents and guardians was observed for high schools.</p><p> The results indicated that the yogo teachers provided diverse health guidance according to the school types and changed the targets, methods, and contents of the health guidance depending on the school types.</p>