. Mohtasham Ghaffari; . Gholamreza Sharifirad; . Esmaeil Malekmakan; . Akbar Hassanzadeh
Volume 3, Issue 1 , January 2013, , Pages 1-8
Abstract
Introduction: Regular physical activity has positive effects on physical, mental and socialaspects of individual and community health. Considering the prevalence of noncommunicablediseases ...
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Introduction: Regular physical activity has positive effects on physical, mental and socialaspects of individual and community health. Considering the prevalence of noncommunicablediseases such as primary hypertension, osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases for whichsedentary lifestyle is a responsible factor, health policy makers have planned to encouragepeople to do more physical activities. Development of beneficial health habits during childhoodand early adolescence are very important because the behaviors, which start at adolescencetend to continue into adulthood, too. This study aimed to determine the effect of educationalintervention on physical activity-related knowledge, attitude and behavior of the first gradestudents in male high schools of Bavanat in 2010. Materials and Methods: In this prospectiveexperimental study, after selecting two qualified schools from five high schools, all students ofone school (two classes including 42 individuals) were randomly assigned to the experimentalgroup and all the students of another high school (two classes including 43 individuals) wererandomly assigned to the control group. The data gathering tool was a 4-section questionnairewhich included demographic questions, knowledge- and attitude-related questions and thequestionnaire of physical activity performance. The first three sections of the questionnairewere the researcher-designed and validated by face and content validity. Test-retest and internalconsistency (Cronbach’s Alpha) methods were used to determine the reliability of knowledgequestionnaire and attitude questionnaire, respectively. For the measurement of physical activitybehavior, a self-reporting questionnaire (valid and reliable Garcia scale) was used in this study.After conducting the pretest, the educational intervention was done for the experimental group.Post-tests were conducted immediately and 1 month after intervention. The collected data wereanalyzed using SPSS18 statistical software (independent t-test, paired t-test, chi-square, MannWhitney test and repeated measures ANOVA). The participants voluntarily and consciouslyparticipated in this study. Results: The findings indicated no significant differences between thegroups in terms of mean scores of knowledge(P = 0.934), attitude (P = 0.155) and behavior(P = 0.387) before the intervention. Therewas a significant difference between meanscores of knowledge in the immediatefollow-up (P< 0.001) and 1 month afterintervention follow-up (P < 0.001), and alsobetween mean scores of attitude immediately(P < 0.001) and 1 month after intervention(P = 0.01) follow-ups in the experimentalgroup compared with the control one. Meanscores of physical activity 1 month after theintervention in both experimental and control groups significantly increased (P < 0.001, P = 0.01, respectively), but the mean scores ofphysical activity between two groups were not significantly different (P = 0.390). Discussion andConclusion: The results indicated the effectiveness of educational intervention, consequentlyincreased knowledge and improved attitude of students, in the experimental group comparedwith the control one in terms of physical activities; thus, physical activity behavior of interventiongroup increased. Although the mean scores of physical activity in the control group significantlyincreased, other studies should be done which can control and consider confounding variables.
