An intervention effect study on improving preschool educators ability on eye care programs by adopting life skill based strategies

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of interventions to enhance the health instruction ability of preschool educators by adopting life skills-based strategies. Methods: This study was designed as a quasi-experimental study with pre- and post-testing control group design as well as tracking of delayed effects. An aggregate of 77 preschool educators from the northern region were selected as the study subjects and were divided into experimental and control groups according to their preference. A total of 12 hours of experimental intervention was conducted in six sessions of the “Life Skills-Based Health Instruction Strategic Program for Early Childhood Eye Care Course.” The self-formulated “Health Instruction Ability Assessment Scale” was adopted as a measurement tool and analyzed with a generalized estimating equations (GEE) to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention program. Results: The analysis findings indicated that after controlling for group and time, the integration of life skills-based health instruction strategies into the early childhood eye care course had positive effects on the health instruction awareness, attitudes, and confidence of preschool educators. Moreover, the program exhibited an eight-week delayed effect on the health instruction attitude of preschool educators. Conclusions: The life skills-based health instruction strategic program developed in this study significantly improved the health instruction awareness, attitude, and confidence of preschool educators regarding eye care instruction, and can serve as a reference for entities or government agencies concerned to design courses on enhancing preschool educators’ health instruction competency in the future.