[The story as a health education technic for schoolchildren]

Schoolchildren health education should begin as early as possible. The objective of this study is to show that to develop health education early in the lifetime is feasible by using the tale/psychodrama as tool for making class explanations more useful. An intervention study was carried out with all the children attending course level 1 of Basic General Education (BGE) in four schools, two from the city of Granada (urban) and two from two surrounding municipalities (semi-urban). They were randomly divided in two groups in order to compare the efficacy of two different health education interventions on taking care of pets: formal explanations at the classroom vs listen to a tale. Evaluation was assessed by a simple 15 yes/no items questionnaire which was administered before and after the intervention. Both interventions resulted in important improvements of children responses. The tale was clearly better than class formal explanations, the differences being statistically significant for 8 of the questions. We conclude that health education is feasible early in childhood and that tales can be more efficient than class explanations.