The Effect of Puberty and Fertility Health Education on Health Knowledge and Practice in Third Class Girls in Kohgilouye and Boyerahmad Province High Schools

Purpose: To determine the effect of puberty and fertility health education on healthy knowledge and practice. Background: Puberty is the first time to accept motherhood roles and is the period of major physical-psycho-social growth. Not having any prior knowledge of such sudden changes or of reproductive health issues and wrong information about this period could lead to a number of gynecological diseases, as well as infertility, psychological crisis, behavioral disorders even death. Design: At first, all the science teachers of the female high school students were educated about puberty and fertility. They were then assigned to 10% of the girl students of high schools (728 students) who were selected randomly for 12 sessions. All students completed health knowledge and practice questionnaires before and after education. At last, data was collected and analyzed by SPSS software. Results: In this research, findings showed that before education 50/4% of scores were weak, compared to only 6/5% of scores after education (here, weak refers to less than 10). Furthermore, before education 43.1% of scores were fair (10-14), as opposed to 60/4% after education. High scores (more than 15) were 6/55% before education which reached to 17% after education. The findings showed a significant difference between the knowledge scores before and after education (P<0.0001). With respect to taking baths during menstruation, results were different before and after education, with 62/7% of students not taking baths before education and 25/3% bathing after education. The rate of genital washing during menstruation was different in before and after education (71/7% vs. 50/1%). Conclusion: Education has had a positive effect on the knowledge and practices of students, but high percentages of students were found to be weak in health activities. It is important to better knowledge in this area, and this study's findings show that other factors such as culture and other's recommendations (specially by mothers) can be influential in sexual health practices. Education programs should therefore be widespread in girls' schools and in society/families (mothers) in general.

The Effect of Puberty and Fertility Health Education on Health Knowledge and Practice in Third Class Girls in Kohgilouye and Boyerahmad Province High Schools