Puberty Health Status among Adolescent Girls: A Model- based Educational Program

Kheirollahi, Fatemeh; Rahimi, Zahra; Arsang- Jang, Shahram; Sharifirad, Gholamreza; Sarraf, Parisa; Gharlipour, Zabihollah

doi:10.22038/ijp.2017.23174.1950

Puberty Health Status among Adolescent Girls: A Model- based Educational Program

Authors

Fatemeh Kheirollahi ¹

Zahra Rahimi ¹

Shahram Arsang- Jang ²

Gholamreza Sharifirad ³

Parisa Sarraf ¹

Zabihollah Gharlipour ⁴

¹ Student of Research Commute, Faculty of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

² Instructor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

³ Faculty of Medicine, Islamic Azad University, Qom Branch, Iran.

⁴ Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.

10.22038/ijp.2017.23174.1950

Abstract

Background
Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood and is one of the fastest stages of human development which is simultaneous to start of puberty. This study aimed to investigate the puberty health status among adolescent girls through a model- based educational program.
Materials and Methods
The current study was an interventional quasi-experimental research. It was conducted on 152 girls aged 13 to 15 years old on the city of Qom- Iran. To select the subjects, first an education zone was randomly selected. In that zone, two schools were randomly selected as the intervention and control groups (76 for interventional group and 76 for control group).After confirming the reliability and validity of a researcher-made questionnaire, it was used to collect the required data via self-reports. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0 software.
Results
The mean age and menarche of the students were 13.59 ± 0.87 and 12.38 ± 0.99 years, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of knowledge and behavior in intervention and control groups after educational intervention, so that the mean scores of knowledge and behavior about puberty health in the intervention group were higher than the control group (P< 0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the scores of Health Belief Model constructs (P > 0.05).
Conclusion
As the results showed, before the intervention the status of knowledge, attitude toward puberty health, and behavior about puberty health of the studied students was not favorable. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight the need for educational interventions and the role of health professionals in this field.

Keywords

Adolescent

Educational program

health

puberty