الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 171 |  |  |
| | | from | 171 | | |
Abstract
Primary school children represent an important social group in the society because they are more vulnerable to malnutrition; underweight or obesity. The school-age years are a time of continued maturation of the child’s physical, social, and psychological characteristics (Koabar et al., 2018).Child growth is one of the most important health indicators from early infancy until puberty and remains one of the major public health concerns. It occurs through a complex, organized process characterized by predictable developmental stages and events. Growth is an indicator of the child’s health and nutritional status (Modjadji, 2021). There are many factors affecting physical growth among primary school children as genetic, gender, physical and mental wellbeing, family and social life, education, physical exercise, sleep, cultural nourishment and socioeconomic condition but the growth and development of children largely depends on the diet(Eze et al., 2017).Evidence Based Assessment (EBA) is an approach to psychological and physical assessment that is consistent with the principles of evidence-based practice found in improving health professions. At its core, EBA relies on research and theory to guide the selection of constructs to be assessed for a specific assessment purpose, the methods and measures to be used in the assessment, and the manner in which the assessment process unfolds. It is important for nurses to apply evidence based practice in all aspects of physical growth in children to maintain optimal `health (Perry et al., 2022).School health nurses play an important role in caring for children, preventing malnutrition and treating those who are already at risk of malnutrition. Nurses are experts in the regular guidance of children weight and height to notice signal of malnutrition at an early stage, encourages the mothers to maintain healthy feeding for their children, providing vitamins, regular health check-up, and providing the guidelines and counselling to the family about appropriate balance in diet. Also, they support the children by assessing the prevalence of physical growth through observing sign and symptoms of malnutrition and give health education about nourishment for primary school children to improve nutritional status and maintain normal growth (Sharma& Sapkota, 2021).Purpose of the Study The purpose of the present study is to apply evidence-based assessment of physical growth among the studied primary school children.Research Questions:Q1: What is the state of physical growth among the selected primary school children?Q2: What is the prevalence of physical growth deviations among the selected primary school children?Q3: What is the state of lifestyle practices among the selected primary school children?Research design:A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used to achieve the aim of this study.Research setting:This study was carried out in three Governmental primary schools at Baltiem in Kafr –El-sheikh governorate, Egypt.Study Sample:A simple random sample of 300 out of 4774 students were selected from previous mentioned areas.Instruments for data collection:
The researchers used five different instrument:Instrument I: The researchers developed an interview questionnaire after reviewing the relevant literature. It consisted of two parts:Part I: Socio-demographic characteristics of children.Part II: Past medical history of the children.Instrument II: Nutritional knowledge and practices questionnaire was adopted from Wilson and Ciliska (1984) to assess nutritional knowledge and practices of the children. It included thirty closed- ended question, which was classified into two parts:Part I: Nutritional knowledge, which consisted of ten questions Part II: Nutritional reported practices, which consisted of twenty questions Instrument III : Lifestyle assessment questionnaire :It was adopted from Wilson and Ciliska (1984) to assess lifestyle for children, it consisted of twenty one closed ended questions which was classified into four items as the following:- Healthy habits included six questions- Exercise consisted of three questions- Rest and sleep included four questions- Psychological stress consisted of eight questions Instrument IV: Physical examination checklist The researcher conducted physical examination to assess signs and symptoms of malnutrition as pale skin, loss of plasters in nails, loss of hair and dental caries. It was done by checking children, skin, nails, hair, eye, nose, ear, mouth, teeth, neck, abdomen, back, and legs to determine any abnormalities.Instrument V: Biophysiological measurements The measurements were done by the researcher to assess physical growth of primary school children. It included weight and height. Weight & Height: it was measured by using American Detecto and Toll Scale. The results of weight and height were represented on an Egyptian growth chart.The main results of this study showed that:- The main findings revealed that 41.3% of the studied children weight ranged between 20<30 kg, and 40.7% of the studied children height ranged between 120-<130 cm. Moreover,14.0% of the studied children have short stature. Furthermore, 11.7% of the studied children are underweight.- The main findings indicated that 52.7% of the studied children have poor level, 29.0% of them have fair level and 18.3% of them have good level of total knowledge and reported practices.- The main findings pointed that 59.3% of the studied children have unhealthy lifestyle.While, 40.7% of them have healthy lifestyle.- There was highly statistically significant relation between children’ body mass index and the age of the studied children, their total nutritional knowledge, reported practices and reported lifestyle at P < 0.001.- There was highly statistically significant relation between children’ height and their age, educational year, total nutritional knowledge, reported practices and their total reported lifestyle at P < 0.001 The study concluded that Two third of children had normal weight, less than one quarter of the studied children were underweight. Moreover, three quarters of the studied children had normal stature, and one quarter had short and long stature. Also, it concluded that more than half of the studied children had unhealthy lifestyle. In addition, there was highly statistically significant relation between physical growth of the studied children and their total nutritional knowledge, reported practices and their total reported lifestyle. Furthermore the study clarified that Evidence Based Assessment tool is a good reference for assessing physical growth of primary school children Recommendations Focused on the results of the current study, it was recommended that 1. Continuous assessment of physical growth of primary school children using the evidence based assessment chart is a valid and reliable tool for regular check of the health status of these sectors of the community.2. Nutritional educational programs should be directed to primary school children, teachers,and the parents to enhance their knowledge and practice regarding healthy growth3. Educational program about evidence-based nutrition should be provided to the families of children.4. Further studies should be done to expand understanding of the special needs of primary school children regarding health physical growth.