Published Paper Details:

This study has been undertaken to assess the knowledge and practice regarding measures used to prevent COVID-19 among school age children. The objectives of the study were to assess the existing knowledge of school age children regarding knowledge and practices of preventive measures of COVID-19, to evaluate the effectiveness of planned health teaching program in terms of gain in post-test knowledge and practice scores and to find the association between knowledge and practices of preventive measure of COVID-19 among the school age children with selected demographic variables. The research design used for the study was non experimental descriptive study and based on Ludwig's modified general system theory and nursing process. The review of literature consisted of studies relate to incidence of COVID-19 in school age children, predisposing factors, causes, and preventive measures of COVID-19 in school age children. The sample size was 60 school age children selected using simple random sampling technique. The tool consisted of section I with 10 items regarding demographic data, section II of 25 items regarding to knowledge aspects and section III of 15 items regarding practice aspects. The interpretation of data was done with the help of descriptive statistics. Major findings of the study reveal that 35% of them good knowledge, 63.33% had average knowledge and 1.67% had poor knowledge regarding COVID-19. After the administration of planned teaching program 98.33% of children gained good knowledge, 1.67% gained average knowledge. Analysis of practice scores revealed that 49.77% always used preventive measures, 22.67% used more often, 10.33% used rarely and 17.22% never practiced preventive measures. The study also revealed that there was significant association between demographic variables like age, parents' education status, type of family and source of information and the pretest knowledge scores of the school age children.