[Health status of 1st- to 3d-grade pupils in a unified secondary polytechnical school entering school at different...

The purpose of the present work is to study the effect of training in the new unified secondary polytechnical school /USPS/ on the health status of students from I-III class, with initial school age 6 and 7 years, realized in the conditions of 5-day school week and all day organization of the training process. A longitudinal observation /I to III class/ on the health status of 6 divisions of schoolchildren in Sofia and Burgas is performed--on those starting at the age of 6 /experimental/ and 7 years /controls/. Besides a transversal investigation of a total number of 1657 students of I-III class in 10 districts of the country was carried out, distributed in like manner between 6 and 7 years old schoolchildren. On each stage of the study were made medical examinations with paraclinical ones /blood and urine/, and during every school year information has been gathered for all cases of acute diseases. It was established that the health status of the examined schoolchildren of I-III class of the unified secondary polytechnical schools, evaluated on the basis of data taken from the acute and chronic somatic diseases is good. There are no abrupt differences in the health of both compared groups of schoolchildren. A slight tendency for deterioration of the health is observed among those starting school at 6 years.