Effectiveness of Nutrition Education Intervention among High School Students
in Tarqumia, Palestine
Abstract:
Few school-based interventions have been evaluated to assess
health knowledge among high school students in rural southern areas of Palestine.
This intervention study was to evaluate the impact of school-based nutrition
education intervention on the knowledge of adolescents in a rural Palestinian
community to nutrition health issues and to identify sources of nutrition knowledge.
It compared adolescents in a two high schools (study group), which received
health education on nutrition health with another two high school (control group),
which did not receive any. The impact of the program was evaluated with a pre-test
baseline knowledge and post-test gain in the knowledge 3 months later, using
the same questionnaire. A total of 240 students selected by stratified sampling
from each of the two randomly selected schools, a rural community in south Palestine
participated in the program. The school-based intervention was effective in
increasing health knowledge in the intervention as compared with the control
group. The overall mean nutrition knowledge score increased by 1.91 in intervention
group (baseline to follow-up: 4.59 to 6.50).The results showed that there was
a significant difference (p = 0.005) between male and female students in the
intervention group at post-test, whereas no significant differences for control
group (p = 0.726). In contrast, there was no significant difference between
scientific and non-scientific stream students in both the intervention and control
groups (p = 0.531 and p = 0.337), respectively. School and media were the two
most common sources of nutrition knowledge. Health knowledge of rural Palestinian
adolescents can be improved through school-based nutrition education intervention.
Further research needs to be conducted to determine the long-term impact.
How to cite this article
Farid A.W. Ghrayeb, Mohamed A. Rusli, Ayesha Al Rifai and Mohd I. Ismail, 2013. Effectiveness of Nutrition Education Intervention among High School Students
in Tarqumia, Palestine. Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 12: 787-792.
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