Health Educational Program for Students with Hearing Impairment and Deafness regarding their Quality of Life

Background: Hearing impairment is diminished acuity to sounds which would otherwise be heard normally and deafness is inability to understand speech even in the presence of amplification. Aim of study: Was to evaluate health educational program for students with hearing impairment and deafness regarding their quality of life. Research design: A quasi experimental design was utilized in this study. Setting: This study was conducted at Al -Amal School for Mute and Deafness in Benha City. The sample: All hearing impaired and deaf students were included in the study; total sample included 100 students with age group 14-19 years. Tools: I): A structured interviewing questionnaire which consists of three parts to assess a): Sociodemographic characteristics b): Students' knowledge regarding hearing impairment and deafness disease c): Reported practices of the students. II): Scale to measure the attitude of students toward hearing impairment and deafness, and III): Scale to measure quality of life of students with hearing impairment and deafness. Results: 67% of studied students had good knowledge while 96% of the studied students had satisfactory practices, 71% of them had positive attitudes and 57% of studied students had good quality of life post program. There were positive highly statistically significant correlations between studied students' total attitudes score and their total knowledge score & statistically significant correlation between the studied students' total practices scores and their total knowledge score pre-program. There were positive statistically significant correlations between the studied students' total attitudes score, total practices score and total knowledge score also, there were positive statistically significant correlations between total practices score, total attitudes score and total quality of life score post program. Conclusion: Health educational program succeeded to improve knowledge, practices, attitudes and quality of life of studied students with hearing impairment and deafness. Recommendations: Continuous application of health educational programs for students with hearing impairment and deafness to enhance students` knowledge, practices, attitudes and quality of life .