Development of cognitive abilities of children infected with helminths through health education

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of health education in learning and cognitive development of children infected, previously treated in an endemic area for helminthiasis. METHODS: It is a longitudinal, experimental, with random allocation of participants. The study included 87 children of both sexes enrolled in the school hall of Maranhão, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and divided into two groups: intervention and control. Initially the children were submitted to the parasitological fecal examination for infection diagnosis and, when positive, they were treated. For the data collection, a structured questionnaire and the psychological tests Raven, Wisc-III and DAP III were applied, before and after the educational intervention. For the group comparison, the Mann Whitney test was used, and established significance level of 5%. RESULTS: It was found that previously infected children who received the educational intervention, children showed higher performance than the control group in strutured questionnaire (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: It is acceptable to suppose the positive influence and the importance in the use of educational interventions in the cognitive recovery and learning of children previously treated with anthelmintics.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lobato,Lucas, Miranda,Aline, Faria,Isabela Marinho, Bethony,Jeffrey Michael, Gazzinelli,Maria Flávia
Format: Digital revista
Language:English
Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical - SBMT 2012
Online Access:http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0037-86822012000400020
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