Protective Health Education

Problem Statement: As a result of wars, starvation, traffic accidents, homicide, infectious diseases, insufficient adult protection, migration, and inadequate legal reforms the mortality rate of children has become a serious problem in the world. Protective health education contributes to a child's physical and social health. In this case, the main problem of research is "How does the production and applications of educational materials affect the protective health knowledge level of prospective preschool teachers?". Purpose of the Study: The aims of this study are, to increase the health knowledge level of prospective teachers, to produce protective health education materials for children and to experience the applications of produced materials with these children. Method: The present study was used partially mixed sequential equal status design model. The quantitative data from the protective health knowledge level test including 20 open-ended questions were combined with qualitative data from interviews who (n = 131) were the pre-school prospective teachers. The qualitative data that were gathered from face to face interviews with 22 of the sample group. The interventions of research including theoretical and production of protective health education tools took place 12 weeks then prospective teachers applied tools on children. Ttest and content analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. Findings: There was a significant difference in the protective health knowledge level test scores of participants (t (131) = 10.53, p<0.00) before and after the research. There was a significant difference between the mean values of pre-test and post-test results on the immunity (t (131) = 5.51, p<0.00), traffic (t (131) = 1.53, p<0.00), nutrition (t (131) = 6.38, p<0.00), hygiene (t (131) = 5.83, p<0.00), mental health (t(131) = 4.05, p<.00). There was no significant difference between the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test of tooth health (t (131) = 1.53, p>0.00) and physical activities (t (131) = 1.53, p>0.00). The difficulties during the production of materials, the difficulties during the applications with students and the experiences of prospective teachers were obtained as themes from the qualitative data. Conclusion and Recommendations: Protective health education should be given to all prospective teachers in all subjects including practical as well as conceptual knowledge. In the future they can use this knowledge and these practices to decrease the mortality rate of countries as a teacher, as an individual in a society or as a parent.