Eye Health is Geared toward Elementary School Students
Elementary school eye health programs ought to be carefully prepared to maximize the benefits of the health program for young minds. First, before the program begins, the nurse and her team must agree on the goals of the program, how to achieve the goals in a systematic manner, and how the team will track their progress of the eye health program to ensure maximum achievement of the learning objectives among the elementary children.
Only then can the elementary eye programs have the most significant impact. A specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goal is referred to as a SMART goal (Tempest, 2020). SMART objectives specify how a team can attain a goal; in this case, teaching elementary children eye care. This paper aims to outlay the goals of the elementary school program of eye care using the SMART objectives.
School-based eye care treatments have the ability to deliver high-quality, low-cost services that enable the early diagnosis of eye disorders and the prevention of long-term eye complications such as blindness. With this, it is consequently critical to identify strategies for enhancing and strengthening elementary school-based eye care programs.
The elementary school eye health programs objectives include; to recruit ten kindergarten teachers and training the teachers within 3 weeks to evaluate the children’s visual acuity and eye disorders, infections, and related symptoms, to test 300 pupils aged four to ten years for eye disorders between 10/10/2022 and 20/10/2022, and to provide eyeglasses for myopic, diplopic, and photokeratitis conditions to 50% of children with eye problems from low-income families, all of whom will get ready-made eyeglasses, and to refer the remaining 50% of children to the eye medical center for examination and treatment of their eye conditions at subsidized prices.
The first objective is to recruit ten kindergarten teachers and train the teachers within 3 weeks to evaluate the children’s visual acuity, eye disorders, infections, and related symptoms. School-based eye screening, community-based eye examinations, and thorough eye examinations at a health institution are the three basic techniques for identifying children with vision impairments.
According to Aribaba et al. (2019), school-based evaluation is often not provided for minors, and approximately 25% of the overall number of examined children have not undergone any sort of eye examination, whether in a clinic setting or during a community-based free eye screening program. As a result, WHO has proposed including vision assessment and refractive facilities in other screening programs (Siddiqui, 2019).
It is critical to educate and equip instructors to recognize visual issues in youngsters. Teachers check for indications such as blurry or double vision, squinting eyes, and difficulty spelling. Slow to complete writing tasks, reversing letters or words, problems with attentiveness, and rubbing eyes are also some of the symptoms to look out for. This is an educator role performed by the nurse as well as an advocacy role and is important in making the objectives (Bastable et al., 2018).
The second SMART objective is to test 300 pupils aged four to ten years for eye disorders between 10/10/2022 and 20/10/2022. Although eye screening programs are obligatory and frequently implemented in most industrialized nations, they are not offered nor mandated for school admission in most schools.
Preschool and regular elementary school eye exams are hindered by the lack of resources and skilled health staff. School teacher training and engagement in school eye screenings are obviously beneficial in any attempt to institute mandatory kindergarten and frequent eye tests in schools.
Targeting all 300 pupils is an important objective in achieving 100 percent diagnostic tests and eliminating ant possible eye infections and conditions. School-based vision care recommendations advocate evaluating all elementary learners for low visual acuity, followed by yearly screening for incoming students and those already issued spectacles to sustain accurate prescriptions(Gilbert, 2018).
The third objective is to provide eyeglasses for myopic, diplopic, and photokeratitis conditions to 50% of children with eye problems from low-income families, all of whom will get ready-made eyeglasses, and to refer the remaining 50% of children to the eye medical center for examination and treatment of their eye conditions at subsidized prices.
Periodic and systemic vision screening in schools can help to address the low adoption of treatment outside of education systems. When matched to the distribution of a prescription solely, a prescription, and as well as a message to the guardians, or when delivered in combination with an education program, free eyeglasses can encourage spectacle usage and result in greater compliance. Spectacle compliance ranged from 13.4% in Mexico34 to 87.1% in Brazil, according to Burnett et al. (2018), during free treatment and check-ups.
Conclusion
Eye care is an essential component of holistic eye care and is aimed not only at eliminating blindness and vision loss, but also at treating ocular illness. In delivering elementary eye care, the aims include providing treatment and diagnosing eye illness before it progresses to a major medical condition, eye health teaching, symptom detection, visual acuity assessment, diagnosis, and timely referral are among the objectives to be considered. Teachers play a part in visual screening in elementary school, and the need to have an objective focus on them is necessary.
References
Aribaba, O., Alabi, A., Alabi, A., Adenekan, A., Onakoya, A., & Akinsola, F. (2019). Training teachers on vision screening for school children in low-resource setting in southwest, Nigeria. Nigerian Journal of Ophthalmology, 27(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.4103/njo.njo_15_18
Bastable, S. B., Braungart, M. M., Gramet, P. R., Jacobs, K., Sopczyk, D. L., Martin, A., Esperti, C. L., Souza, R., Demartin, J., & Leon Maimone, M. (2018). Professional nurse as an educator. Jblearning. http://samples.jblearning/9781284155204/9781284186475_FMxx_Bastable.pdf
Burnett, A. M., Yashadhana, A., Lee, L., Serova, N., Brain, D., & Naidoo, K. (2018). Interventions to improve school-based eye-care services in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 96(10), 682-694D. https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.18.212332
Gilbert, C. (2018). Ready to screen? Start with the goal in mind. Community Eye Health, 30(98), 26–28. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29070922
Siddiqui, M. J. (2019). Effective training of school teacher for vision screening: Strategic control of visual impairment in schoolchildren. TEXILA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, 7(2), 40–44. https://doi.org/10.21522/tijph.2013.07.02.art006
Tempest, E. (2020). How to draw up SMART objectives that will work. Nursing Times, 108(41), 37. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23252105