Effects of stroke education of junior high school students on stroke knowledge of their parents: Tochigi project.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Educating the youth about stroke is a promising approach for spreading stroke knowledge. The aim of this study was to verify communication of stroke knowledge to parents by educating junior high school students about stroke. METHODS We enrolled 1127 junior high school students (age, 13-15 years) and their parents in the Tochigi prefecture, Japan. All students received a stroke lesson, watched an animated cartoon, and read the related Manga comic as educational aids. The students took back home the Manga and discussed what they learned with their parents. Questionnaires on stroke knowledge were given to all at baseline and immediately after the lesson. RESULTS A total of 1125 students and 915 parents answered the questionnaires. In the students, the frequency of correct answers increased significantly for all questions on stroke symptoms except for headache, and for all questions on risk factors after the lesson. In the parents, the correct answer rates increased for stroke symptoms except for headache and numbness in one side of the body, and for all questions on risk factors except for hypertension. Ninety-one percent of students and 92.7% of parents correctly understood the Face, Arm, Speech, and Time (FAST) mnemonic after the lesson. CONCLUSIONS Improvement of stroke knowledge immediately after the stroke lesson was observed in parents as well as their children, which indicated that our teaching materials using the Manga was effective in delivering the stroke knowledge to parents through their children.