Background: Pediatric allergy specialist certified by Japanese Society of Allergology, carried out a training program on allergic diseases for school teachers from 21 elementary and junior high schools in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, who were selected by the Prefectural Education Committee. These schools have a few children who suffer from severe food allergies.
Methods: This training session was held in 2009 to promote the support for allergic children. The program consisted of a lecture and discussion for a total of 2 hours. In the lecture, the specialists used a textbook titled "The Guideline for the Care of Allergic Children in School" (edited by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and published by Japanese Society of School Health). This Guideline has already been distributed to all elementary, junior high and high schools in all of Japan.
Results: We evaluated these sessions by sending a questionnaire to the participants. Among 799 teachers with valid responses 600 (75%) and 181 (23%) respondents rated this training session as "very useful" and "moderately useful," respectively. As a result 98 percent of them considered it as "useful." Of the 788, 666 (85%) and 120 (15%) respondents also answered that they "clearly understood" and "somewhat understood" respectively the necessity of adrenaline self-injection (Epipen
®).
Conclusions: It may not be easy for the specialist to make time for a lot of training programs in schools, but such a program should be offered to all the teachers. A guidebook answers to the teachers' questions may be required in the future to make the training program with more effective.
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