Pilot Study on the Improvement of the Health-education and Psychological Competencies of Education Students in the Context of Epidemic/Pandemic Circumstances

Research study: According to the World Health Organization, six out of ten global health problems are related to the domain of infectious diseases (WHO, 2019), which inevitably confronts us with an increasing risk of pandemic situations. The global health system has identified solid solutions, with prevention being essential in these situations (Bloom & Cadarette, 2019). Prevention is far better and cheaper, regardless of whether it is a specific prophylaxis (vaccination) or non-specific preventive measures (Bloom & Cadarette, 2019). Therefore, it is crucial that initial education includes prevention against the most common infectious diseases, as well as initial knowledge about them. Numerous preventive measures include patterns of behavior that can be practiced with children of a preschool and early school age, through the immediate educational process. In addition, at this time children successfully develop habits and adopt demonstrated patterns of behavior, via observational learning (Bandura, 1977; Greer, Singer-Dudek, & Gautreaux, 2006). For that reason, it is important that preschool and primary school teachers have awareness of their role in this complex process, as well as enough knowledge, skills and experience regarding psychological protection and mental empowerment of children while preparing them for various epidemic risks. It is crucial to enhance teachers’ capabilities to implement holistic pedagogies and healing-informed teaching (Hill, et al., 2020), in order to mitigate the epidemic/pandemic effects on children. All sudden and unexpected events are opportunities that enable us to address current problems in each crisis and to consider new and innovative approaches in teachers' education (Mutton, 2020). The aim of the research was to evaluate the health-education and psychological competencies of future teachers regarding the circumstances of epidemic/pandemics, and subsequently, using different workshop activities, to improve those competencies and skills. Thus, to enable them to encourage children, through learning and demonstration, to practice behaviours that contribute to the health maintaining and social-emotional wellness. Research methods: Besides the theoretical research and literature review, the realisation of the project began with the construction of a research instrument designed as a survey questionnaire. The survey contained 18 questions intended to examine the levels of knowledge (3 questions) and attitudes (15 for self-assessment of mentioned competencies, according to the Likert-type scale). The questionnaire was anonymous, completed in a paper form and used as an initial test and retest (after the workshop). Conclusion and recommendations: 32 students of education participated in the workshop. They deepened their understanding of the most common infectious diseases, their pathogenesis, Vogralik's chain of infection, the concepts of epidemics/pandemics, and especially the prevention of different infectious diseases, with an emphasis on the current pandemic situation. Their psychological competencies were also improved, including the development and strengthening of resilience and readiness to face various challenges caused by the epidemic threats. The students were presented with ideas, in the form of stories, movies, posters, messages, etc. how, directly in their daily educational praxis to encourage children to practice behaviours that contribute to health maintenance as well as how to preserve mental components of their health during epidemic crises. In that sense, the knowledge on the retest was significantly enhanced by 32.09% (p=0.00000), while positive opinion on the examined competencies was increased by 14.84% (p=0.00001). Furthermore, it was observed that knowledge was considerably improved when compared to attitudes (p=0.0064), in a comparative analysis of the health-education vs psychological attitudes. Taking into account the results in our pilot study and the seriousness and global nature of some health problems, health education is becoming a priority and should be emphasised in an initial education. Since the content in curricula for teachers’ education is inadequate, we believe that, either similar workshop activities or curricula development, can significantly improve their competencies in these domains.