Discussion
anxiety, fever, infection, depressive, depression
INFECTION, CROSS INFECTION
An examination of the impact of the course on students revealed the following. In terms of AHLES-PHE, the baseline level of the course group and the control group was balanced. The scores of the course group improved after the course compared with that before the course, and the difference was statistically significant, while the scores of the control group also improved after general health education, the difference was not statistically significant. The health education course designed in this study, which included public health emergencies, healthy life, health information, mental health, general medical knowledge and skills, had an effect on the improvement of students’ health literacy. The control group carried out general health education to help students understand general health knowledge and partially promote health literacy, so the scores of both the course group and the control group improved after the course, but there was no significant difference between the two groups. Xin Qu et al. [In terms of DSRSC, the baseline levels of the course group and the control group were balanced. The positive rate of post-course depression in the course group was lower than that before the course, and the positive rate of post-course depression in the course group was lower than that in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant. The difference was not statistically significant before and after the general health education in the control group. The health education course designed in this study has content about public health emergencies and mental health, which has a guiding effect on the normal epidemic prevention and control, emotional management and interpersonal relationship handling of students in the course group, so it has an effect on the improvement of students’ depressive moods. Once depression occurs, more professional psychological counseling and education are needed to alleviate it. The control group only received general health education and lacked professional mental health education, so depression did not significantly improve. These results are similar to those of the study conducted by Heli Lu et al. [In terms of GAD-7, the baseline level of the study was balanced between the course group and the control group. The positive rate of anxiety in the course group after the course was lower than that before the course, and the difference was statistically significant, while the positive rate of anxiety in the control group also decreased after general health education, but the difference was not statistically significant. The health education course designed in this study, especially the content on mental health, has an effect on the improvement of students’ anxiety. The control group received general health education that helped students understand general health knowledge and coping skills and partly relieved anxiety. Therefore, after the course, the number of positive students in both the course group and the control group decreased, and there was no significant difference in the positive rate between the two groups. There is a meta-analysis that supports the conclusions of this study. Wendel Flora et al. [In terms of SCSQ, the results of this study showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups before and after the course and within the group, indicating that there was no significant change in students’ coping styles as a result of the course or general health education. Possible reasons are as follows: First, junior middle school students faced much frustration and pressure, not only limited to public health emergencies. The course designed in this study was mainly about how to deal with public health emergencies. Second, Yaning Xie [This study was carried out during the epidemic period of COVID-19 in 2022. The research group and the school had made efforts to prevent and control the epidemic and prevent cross infection among two groups of students. During this study period, there were no reports of related cases of infection among the two groups of students. The measures taken were as follows: (1) In this study, the intervention group and control group were randomly selected based on the class as a unit, and the learning and life of two groups were relatively separate. (2) Adopt a combination of offline and online teaching methods and use online teaching when the epidemic was severe. (3) All research subjects signed informed consent forms, obtaining the consent and cooperation of students and parents. (4) During the epidemic, the school would also take routine prevention and control measures according to the epidemic prevention and control guidelines for middle school students, such as students wearing masks, washing hands frequently, measuring body temperature, regular nucleic acid testing, classroom disinfection and ventilation; If students had fever during temperature measurement, they would rest in the isolation room and take their temperature again. If their temperature was higher than normal, they would be taken back by their parents; If there were close contacts or suspected positive cases, students would be temporarily suspended from school, and parents would take students to the hospital for medical observation and treatment. These students would be withdrawn from the research project.There are several limitations that suggest future research directions. The research subjects were junior middle school students from two middle schools. Thus, compared with teenagers in general, the findings for these subjects may not be generalizable. Future research can be carried out with larger sample sizes. The content of the course can be further adjusted, such as adding content on the ability to resist setbacks. Due to the pandemic, online and offline courses can be combined, and offline courses can be adopted when the pandemic eases. The follow-up time after the course of this study is slightly shorter, which could be extended in the future. Assessment tools, such as other health literacy assessment questionnaires, could be added to validate the effectiveness of the course.