Improving awareness of preconception health among adolescents: experience of a school-based intervention in Lebanon

Abstract

BackgroundMaternal behavior before and after conception affects maternal and child health. Limited awareness of adolescents in preconception health may be addressed through school education. The aim of this intervention is to assess preconception health awareness among adolescents in Lebanese high schools and to test the effectiveness of a one-time educational session in improving preconception knowledge.MethodsThe intervention consisted of a 30-minute educational session about good practices in preconception health, developed by the National Collaborative Perinatal Neonatal Network’s (NCPNN) research team. A convenience sample of high school Lebanese students in grades 10 to 12, aged 14 to 26 years old, from 70 private and public schools in all six Lebanese provinces, participated in the intervention in 2011 and 2012. A multiple-choice questionnaire administered prior to and 2 months after the session was used to assess knowledge improvement among the students.ResultsA total of 7,290 students were enrolled. After the session, mean scores of correct answers increased from 4.36 to 6.42 out of 10, representing a 47.2% improvement (p < 0.001). The percent of correct answers increased for all the questions regarding health practices (p < 0.001). The greatest improvement was observed for questions about Trisomy 21, folic acid intake and toxoplasmosis with percentages improvement of 96%, 172% and 83% respectively. Being female or in private school was a significant predictor of higher scores in both pre-test and post-test (p < 0.001).ConclusionsAwareness campaigns in schools increased the preconception health knowledge among high school students. We recommend expanding the scope of this intervention into universities in Lebanon.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-774) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Knowledge of Some Issues Related to Preconception Health and Pregnancy among Faculty of Nursing Students, Assiut University

“…In the present study nearly three-fifths of students were female, this observation in the same line with [6] who reported that the majority of students were female. Also [16] who apply an online study to identify undergraduates' knowledge and attitudes of preconception health care found that 77% of participant was female.…”

“…Regarding marital status of students only 3.4% of them were married, this data disagreed with [6] who mentioned that more than one-fifth of the students were married. And nearly half (47.3%) of participants were married in [17], who performed their study in Hawassa, Ethiopia to assess knowledge of preconception health care among healthcare providers working in public health institutions.…”

“…While in a study carried out by [6] entitled improving awareness of preconception health among adolescents: experience of a school-based intervention in Lebanon and reported that three-quarters of the participants were aged between 14 and 18 years. This difference came from intervention of the last study on adolescents.…”

“…It is found that 40% of studied people not heard about folic acid supplementation before pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects. Most previous researches regarding this point implement their studies on general women and not specify a group of people as university students [1,6,13].…”

“…Pregnancy outcomes are also linked to the man's lifestyle and health as smoking beside his wife that increase risk low birth weight, so it is important to be included in preconception health counseling. Enhancing youth women and men information, attitudes and behaviors is important issue to promote preconception health and to implement this it is important to reach to youth in universities to improve their awareness about preconception health [6].…”