The School Health Programme (SHP) is crucial for promoting the health and well-being of school children, yet its implementation remained inadequate. This study appraised the SHP as a potential predictor of health status of children aged 6-12 years attending rural primary schools in Owerri-West Local Government Area (LGA) of Imo State, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. Data were collected using observational checklist and interview guide based on the National School Health Policy. Seven rural public primary schools, from six randomly selected communities, representing approximately 30% of all communities in the LGA were studied. Data on schools’ performance were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, and mean percentage scores (MPS), for selected characteristics of the components of SHP. Results on performance based on MPS revealed that the schools performed excellently (73.8%) in only Skill-Based Health Education component. Performance on School, Home and Community Relationships component was fair with MPS of 45.2%. Performance on the rest components was rated poor, with School Health Services scoring 31.0%, and Healthful School Environment had 23.8%, while School Feeding Services had the lowest MPS of 5.4%. The implementation of SHP in rural public primary schools in Owerri-West LGA, Imo State was highly unsatisfactory. This situation predicted unfavourable health status for the target population studied, who were underserved with health care and depended largely on SHP for easy access to health promotion and disease prevention services, and even some level of emergency health care. Urgent government intervention in SHP was recommended to safeguard the health and educational development of these vulnerable school children.
S.N.O et al. (Fri,) studied this question.