Background and Objective: One of the ways to achieve healthy communities is training adolescents in healthy behaviors. This study was conducted to assess the impact of peer education approach to health promoting behaviors in Bastak junior high school students.
Methods: The study population was junior high school students in Bastak county, Hormozgan. In this semi-experimental study 201 students were placed in the intervention group and 157 students in the control group. The data were collected through The Adolescent Health Promotion Scale. The questionnaire measures health promoting behaviors in six areas, including nutrition, social protection, health personal responsibility, valuation of health, exercise and stress management. Intervention was performed through peer education. Data were collected before and two months after the intervention and analyzed by using SPSS19 and independent and paired t-test. Results: Health promoting behaviours scores showed a significant increase in the intervention group except health valuation area compared with pre-training (p<0.001) while the control group showed a significant decrease in average behavioral in all domains (p<0.05). After the intervention, students’ health promoting behaviors in all six areas including nutrition, social protection, health personal responsibility, valuing health, exercise and stress management in the intervention group were statistically significant compared with control group (p<0.001).
Conclusion: This study showed that peer education approach can be effective in changing the behavior of young adults towards healthy behaviors.
Paper Type: Research Article.
Ahmadizade fini E, Madani A, Alizade A, Ghanbarnejad A, Aghamolaei T. Effect of Peer Education on Health Promoting Behaviors of Junior High School Students. Iran J Health Educ Health Promot 2015; 3 (2) :105-115 URL: http://journal.ihepsa.ir/article-1-215-en.html