Health education interventional programme and its impact on adolescent students

Abstract

Introduction: In India there are about 242 million adolescents accounting for 22% of its population. It is important to give the adolescents information regarding the physical, sexual, psychological and social changes they undergo during this period. Objectives: Assessing the effectiveness of a health education interventional programme on improving the knowledge of adolescent students about nutrition, reproductive health, sexual and substance abuse and psychosocial problems. Method: Present study was conducted on students of 5th to 9th standard (10 -16-year age group) of Hindi medium school in rural central India. It was a prospective interventional study and a health education interventional programme was conducted. A total of 401 adolescents were included in study. A pre-test was conducted followed by health education and awareness workshops based on a pre-designed, pre-validated teaching module, followed by a focus group discussion of girls and boys in different groups and a post-test at the end. Data in the form of preand post-test questionnaire and notes taken during focus group discussion were collected and analysed using STATA 10 version software and for qualitative data, content analysis was done. Results: Out of the 401 adolescents, 80% were in 12–14 year age group and had almost equal gender distribution. In knowledge and perception regarding nutrition and health, body and self-image, menstrual hygiene and reproductive health, awareness about sexual abuse and psychological problems of adolescence, there was statistically significant improvement (p=0.000) after the educational intervention. Majority of the adolescents thought that there was a need for proper guidance of adolescents. On qualitative analysis, it was seen that adolescents had knowledge of the bad effects on health because of various addictions like smoking, tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption and drugs. Conclusions: Educational intervention in the form of interactive sessions had a positive effect on the knowledge and perception of adolescents regarding nutrition, reproductive health and hygiene, body image, bad touch, addiction and psychological problems.