Original Article
Effects of Stroke Education Using an Animated Cartoon and a Manga on Elementary School Children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2014.02.015Get rights and content

Background

Stroke education for the youth is expected to reduce prehospital delay by informing the bystander of appropriate action to take and providing knowledge to prevent onset of stroke in future. Previously, we developed effective teaching materials consisting of an animated cartoon and a Manga for junior high school students. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of our educational materials for stroke education taught by schoolteachers to elementary school children.

Methods

Using our teaching materials, a 30-minute lesson was given by trained general schoolteachers. Questionnaires on stroke knowledge (symptoms and risk factors) and action to take on identification of suspected stroke symptoms were filled out by school children before, immediately after, and at 3 months after completion of the lesson.

Results

A total of 219 children (aged 10 or 11 years) received the stroke lesson. Stroke knowledge significantly increased immediately after the lesson compared with before (symptoms, P < .001; risk factors, P < .001); however, correct answer rates decreased at 3 months immediately after completion of the lesson (symptoms, P = .002; risk factors, P = .045). The proportion of the number of children calling emergency medical service on identifying stroke symptoms was higher immediately after the lesson than baseline (P = .007) but returned to the baseline at 3 months after the lesson.

Conclusions

Stroke lesson by schoolteachers using our teaching materials consisting of an animated cartoon and a Manga that was previously used for junior high school students was feasible for elementary school children. However, revision of the materials is required for better retention of stroke knowledge for children.

Section snippets

Study Setting and Population

Suita City is located in the urban area of Osaka prefecture in Japan and has around 350,000 residents. Almost all the residents are Asian. The research was in partnership with the Suita City Board of Education (SCBE) and included all the public elementary schools (20,000 pupils) and junior high schools (9000 students) in Suita City. The present study was a preliminary examination for investigating the utility of the stroke education program for fifth-grade children in 2 public elementary

Results

In February 2012, 249 school children of 7 classes from 2 public elementary schools received the stroke lesson. Of these, 30 students of 1 class were excluded from the analyses because the last assessment test at 3 months was not conducted because of concern about 1 student who lost his or her father because of stroke 2 weeks before the test.

Figure 1 shows the composite score of stroke symptoms (left panel, maximum score of 12) and risk factors (right panel, maximum score of 14) before,

Discussion

We showed that the stroke lessongiven by the general schoolteachers using our teaching materials, an animated cartoon and a Manga, was feasible and improved the stroke knowledge immediately after the stroke lesson. However, the proportion of adequate action of “calling EMS” on recognition of signs or symptoms of stroke returned to the level of the baseline at 3 months after the lesson.

For junior high school students, stroke lesson given by a schoolteacher or a stroke neurologist using our

Acknowledgments

We express our deepest gratitude to Professor Keiko Takemiya (Department of Manga, Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan), all the members of the Suita City Board of Education, and the teachers in public elementary and junior high school in Suita City. We also thank Dr Haruko Yamamoto (National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center) for her advice about ethical issues.

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Cited by (0)

This study was supported by the Intramural Research Fund of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (22-4-1).

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