Journal of School of Public Health and

  Background and Aim: Nutritional knowledge acquired by young girls as would-be mothers will play an important role in children’s and family health protection and promotion in the future. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of an educational program based on the BASNEF model on the nutritional behavior among guidance school first-grade female-students.

  Materials and Method: This was an interventional study carried out in the form of a clinical trial including 160 female-pupils divided into two groups ─ a case and a control group ─ randomly selected by two-stage sampling, namely, classification and cluster sampling. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire. Education about healthy nutrition was imparted to the case group in 4 60-minute sessions in the form of lectures, group discussions, and question-answer in addition, pamphlets were distributed among the subjects. Data were collected and analyzed using the SPSS-18 software, the statistical tests being Chi-square, fisher , independent and paired t-tests.

  Results: The data showed that the mean scores of knowledge and BASNEF model components as regards nutritional behavior increased after the intervention in the case, they being higher significantly in the case group as compared to the controls. The most important subjective norms after the intervention were the pupils’ parents .

  Conclusions : The findings indicate that a 3-month educational intervention based on the BASNEF model can bring about desirable changes in some of the undesirable nutritional behaviors in guidance school pupils, and that designing and implementing interventions of this kind, with the support of health and school authorities, is quite feasible.

Background and Aim: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of an intervention based on modern communication technologies and the social cognitive theory on the lifestyle of the government employees in the City of Hamadan, Iran in 2014.

Materials and Methods: A randomized control trial [IRCT2014083118989N1] was conducted including a total 435 employees with overweight or obesity. They were divided into a control group receiving no education and two intervention (experimental) groups (IG1 and IG2) receiving a 6-month education under the title of “lifestyle program”. The educational intervention was “telephone-assisted” in IG1 and “web-assisted” in IG2. Six and nine months after the intervention the lifestyle and changes in in the constructs of the social-cognitive theory were determined and compared between the experimental and control groups. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS-20.

Results: In both intervention groups, the lifestyle program resulted in promoting lifestyle status from “Good” to “Very good” (p=0.001). The intervention in the telephone-assisted group led to increases in the mean scores of the constructs of self-efficacy, environment, outcome expectations, and outcome expectancies, while in the web-assisted intervention group increases were observed only in the mean scores of the constructs of self-efficacy and outcome expectancies (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The results of the present study confirm the effectiveness of a lifestyle intervention based on modern communication technologies and the social-cognitive theory.

Background and Aim: Self-care has a vital role in the control and prevention of complications in patients with Type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), two important behaviors in self-care being medication adherence and physical activity. Regular physical activity has been shown to improve glycemic control, reduce blood pressure, reduce lipids and improve cardiorespiratory fitness in individuals with T2DM. In addition, medication adherence is a key factor in controlling and decreasing the risk of related complications. This study aimed to determine and predict the most important factors affecting the levels of physical activity and medication adherence in patients with T2DM based on the theory of planned behavior.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study, based on the planned behavior theory, was performed on 160 selected men and women with T2DM referring to urban health centers in Yasuj, Iran in 2016; the selection was done by random cluster sampling. Data on medication adherence and physical activity were collected using questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 20 software, the statistical tests being descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression; a p<0/05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.

Results: Altogether, 45% and 43% of the patients had a low and medium level of physical activity, respectively, only 12% having an acceptable level. The adherence to medication was much better ─ 76% had a good adherence. As regards the planned behavior theory constructs, perceived behavior control had a significant relationship with physical activity and medication adherence. Results of multiple linear regression also showed that perceived behavior control was a predictive variable for physical activity level and medication adherence in the patients.

Conclusion: Based on the findings, which indicate that the most important construct is perceived behavior control as regards medication adherence and level of physical activity, it is concluded that it is vital to strengthen the self-care component of health programs and support such programs.