PURPOSES: To identify knowledge of educators before visual screening training. 2) To identify educator perceptions about quality of training. 3) To identify benefits and compliance with the campaign. METHODS: Analytical transversal survey. Public schools of Curitiba-PR. Self-application of questionnaire. RESULTS: Of the 89% interviewed people, only 13% were school teachers. The global training was considered good by 85.9%. All teachers had more than 10 years of teaching activities. The teachers asked for more information in a future training about how to manage children whose treatment was necessary (59.3%). Of the screened children, 94.2% were seen by the doctors and 84.9% had prescriptions for spectacles. Of these, 85.7% improved their learning performance. The health agent (36.1%) and the ophthalmologist (29.7%) were taught to be responsible for the visual screening; only 0.9% considered this a teacher's duty. About 50.5% of parents participated in the activities of the campaign, and the majority justified abstention due to their work (68.5%) besides the lack of knowledge about visual difficulties of their children (50%). CONCLUSIONS: 1) The educators had a satisfactory knowledge about visual screening. 2) Visual training was considered good, but additional information is necessary. 3) There were improvement of learning, parents' compliance was good and the number of children seen by doctors was excellent.
Mass screening; Refractive errors; School health; School health services; Inservice training; Teaching
