Hämeen-Anttila Katri, Airaksinen Marja, Vainio Kirsti, Bush Patricia J, Ahonen Riitta
University of Kuopio, Department of Social Pharmacy, 70211 Kuopio, Finland.
Health Policy. 2006 Oct;78(2-3):272-83. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2005.11.007. Epub 2005 Dec 13.
The aim of this article is to describe the process of developing a medicine education program for elementary and middle schools in Finland and the lessons learned during the process. Further described is how teachers evaluated the usefulness of the medicine education materials created during the process. By medicine education we mean education about the proper use of medicines, abuse of medicines being just a small part of it. The development process started in 2002 by conducting focus group discussions with children in order to discover how children of different ages understand medicine-related topics. Moreover, teachers completed questionnaires in 2002 to assess their opinions about the importance of medicine education as a part of school health education. Based on the results of these two studies, materials were created during 2002-2003 (, in Finnish with an English introduction). These materials gave the teachers information about the proper use of medicines and some ideas for assignments. As a last part of this research project in autumn 2003, the materials were piloted by a group of elementary and middle school teachers (n=14), and the usefulness of the materials were evaluated during focus group discussions after a teaching period. Based on the evaluation, we learned that the Website should contain a simple structure and ready-to-use materials in order to be used by teachers. Moreover, the fact that teachers need information in order to be able to teach this unfamiliar topic became clear. Teachers of younger children need concise information, but teachers of adolescents need more in-depth information. Furthermore, teachers may have negative attitudes towards medicines, and therefore, medicine education should be rationalized for them. We conclude our article with recommendations on what should be taken into consideration when medicine education programs are planned.
本文旨在描述芬兰中小学药物教育项目的开发过程以及在此过程中获得的经验教训。还将进一步阐述教师如何评估在此过程中创建的药物教育材料的实用性。我们所说的药物教育是指关于正确用药的教育，药物滥用只是其中的一小部分。该开发过程始于2002年，通过与孩子们进行焦点小组讨论，以了解不同年龄段的孩子如何理解与药物相关的话题。此外，教师们在2002年完成了问卷调查，以评估他们对药物教育作为学校健康教育一部分的重要性的看法。基于这两项研究的结果，在2002 - 2003年期间创建了材料（芬兰语版本配有英文介绍）。这些材料为教师提供了正确用药的信息以及一些作业思路。作为该研究项目的最后一部分，2003年秋季，一组中小学教师（n = 14）对这些材料进行了试用，并在一个教学周期后的焦点小组讨论中评估了材料的实用性。基于评估结果，我们了解到该网站应具备简单的结构和便于使用的材料，以便教师使用。此外，很明显教师需要信息才能教授这个不熟悉的主题。年幼孩子的教师需要简洁的信息，而青少年的教师需要更深入的信息。此外，教师可能对药物持有负面态度，因此，应该为他们合理开展药物教育。我们在文章结尾给出了规划药物教育项目时应考虑的建议。
