Eyecare health promotion in schools around the Free State Province, South Africa: school-based interventional study.

OBJECTIVES: School-based health promotion is critical for enhancing health literacy and academic performance. In South Africa, preventable visual impairment among school children may be exacerbated by the absence of structured eyecare promotion interventions. The objective of the study was to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of eyecare health promotion in the Thabo Mofutsanyane district, Free State province. METHODS: A school-based cross-sectional interventional study was conducted. Following a simple randomised assignment, 10 schools received the intervention while the remaining 10 received no intervention. An adopted and piloted questionnaire was administered at baseline and readministered 6 months after the intervention. The McNemar's chi-square test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: The baseline study included 199 participants, and following attrition, stood at 136 learners, parents, and teachers. The learner experimental arm demonstrated a statistically significant change in eyecare knowledge (p < 0.05). While no statistically significant changes were noted among teachers, parents and learners had statistically significant variables. CONCLUSION: Despite limitations, this study demonstrated that targeted eye health promotion can improve eyecare knowledge.