The effect of education based on health belief model on high-risk health behaviors in youth: an interventional quasi-experimental study

Abstract

Abstract Objectives The present study was designed to determine the effect of education based on health belief model (HBM) on high-risk health behaviors in youth. Methods This interventional quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2020–2021 with the participation of 62 students living in the dormitories of University of Mashhad Medical Sciences with available sampling and random allocation in two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received six training sessions. The research instruments included: demographic information, researcher-made questionnaire including HBM constructs, youth high-risk behaviors questionnaire (2019) that were used before, immediately and one month after the educations. The collected data were analyzed using t-test, Mann-Whitney, and ANOVA with SPSS 21. Results The mean scores in the field of high-risk behaviors as well as all constructs of HBM were not statistically significant in the two groups before the intervention (p>0.05), but the mean scores immediately and one month after the educational intervention in all constructs of the HBM and the range of high-risk behaviors (other than smoking behavior) in the experimental group compared to the control group was statistically significant (p<0.001). Conclusions Education based on HBM was effective in reducing high-risk health behaviors, so this educational model can be used to reduce high-risk health behaviors in female students.