Comic strips for health education-Comparative study of the effective between children with learning disabilities and regular school performance

Introduction: The comic strips (CS) “Snory sleeps at home” (Ronco dorme em casa) was developed for educational action in pediatric health, and it was previously evaluated through randomized clinical trial and it proved to be very effective to inform the children aged between 6 and 10 years old about the snoring syndrome and the sleep hygiene. In order to continue this research, this study evaluated the CS effectiveness, by comparing the performance of children who were diagnosed with learning disabilities and children who showed regular school development. The children with learning disabilities belong to PIC - Project Intensive in the Cycle - governmental action to recuperate the students who even though are in the 4th grade, are not yet fully literate and they are incapable to progress in their studies. Materials and methods: The sample was composed by 41 students (9-12 years old) from the same school and grade (4th year of an elementary school in the city of São Paulo, Brazil). After reading the CS, the students - 30 with regular school performance (G1) and 11 with learning disabilities (G2) - answered to 3 questions about sleep disorders (test). Question 1 about sleep hygiene (“what is a good thing to do before going to sleep?”) and questions 2 and 3 about snoring syndrome (“is it normal to snore? Why do you think that?”). The answering alternatives about sleep hygiene were subdivided into 3 variables: a) to drink milk; b) to eat on bed and c) to do exercises; about snoring subdivided into 5 variables, at question 2, in “normal” and “ abnormal ” and at question 3 in a) everyone snores; b) it is a sign that something is wrong and c) it is impolite. Results: For the question about sleep hygiene, there was no significant difference (p<0.05) between the correct answers of the children from G1 and G2 (question 1 p = 0.3657; G1 80% and G2 90.9%). However for the questions 2 and 3, there was significant difference of learning between group 1 and 2 (question 2 p = 0.00145; G1 56.7% and G2 9.1% and question 3 p = 0.00057; G1 60% and G2 9.1%). Conclusion: The results showed that CS “Snory sleeps at home” was equally efficient to inform children with regular school performance and with learning disabilities, regarding the most elementary question about sleep hygiene, but was not equally efficient at the most complex questions about snoring syndrome, in which the children with learning disabilities had a worse performance.