Yafteh

1. Instructor, Department of nursing, Faculty of nursing and midwifery, Lorestan University of medical sciences

Abstract

Background: High risk behaviors are the most prevalent factors that endanger the health of a community. Nowadays the prevalence of high risk behaviors, especially among adolescents and young adults has created a lot of worries for human societies and despite the preventive measures of the last three decades, high risk behaviors have grown tremendousely in the world and have imposed heavy medical bills.Since prevention has been recognized to be the only way of controlling such behaviors, medical professionals should change people’s health behaviors by promoting the knowledge of the society. Among these professionals, health trainers can have an important role in increasing community knowledge for the prevention and control of high risk behaviors. Therefore, the level of their knowledge is important. This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of high - risk - behavior prevetion educational program on the knowledge and atittude of school health trainers in Khoramabad in 1384.

Materials and methods: The study was a quasi-experimental one. The sample of the study was all school health trainers (n=50) in Khoramabad. The data collection tool was a three-section questionnaire including questions on demographic data, knowledge, and atittude toward high risk behaviors which was prepared based on reliable information, books and papers and was used after confirming its reliability and validity. In this study the intervening variable was the high - risk - behavior prevetion educational program. The educational method in this study was a two-session workshop. The educational content emphasized on the promotion of knowledge, positive attitude toward prevetion to implement healthy behaviors which was performed by university instructors in the field. After two months of education, the post test was performed on the sample. After collecting the data, the score of each question was obtained and the likert scale was used to obtain the sample’s level of knowledge and attitude. The level of knowledge was determined to be weak if their score was between 0 to 18, moderate in the range of 19-35, and good from 35 to 55. Then data was analyzed by statistical tests (t-test).

Results: The results of the study showed that 78.7% of the sample had some information about high risk behaviors before education, and only 3.4% could define high risk behaviors correctly. The majority of the sample had received their information on high risk behaviors through variouse sources including radio, TV, books and other publications. Paired T-test statistic showed a significant difference (p=0/0001) between the pre and post experimental average score of the sample knowledge and atittude.

Conclusion: The results of the study indicated that health education program has caused an increase in the knowledge and atittude of the sample.Therefore, regarding the trainers’ respansibility in the protection of cimmunity and children’s health, it is imperative to promote their knowledge through continued education on the control and prevention by including them in school books and formating a health consulting committee in schools.