The effect of education on the improvement of fruits and vegetables consumption aiming to preventing colorectal cancer

AIM: This study was performed to determine the effect of health education on the improvement of intake of fruits and vegetables aiming at preventing colorectal cancer among high school girls in the city of Shahr-e-kord. BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer is one of the most important and most common cancers and the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Every year, nearly one million new cases of colorectal cancer are recognized around the world and nearly half of them lose their lives due to the disease. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 130 students were randomly divided to two groups, which experimental (65) and controls (65) were chosen from the city of Shahr-e-kord for this experimental study. The instruments for data collecting were self-made questionnaire health belief model based and food frequency questionnaire. The HBM FFQ questionnaires were completed before, immediately and two months after education by participants. After pre-test, 5 educational session classes in experimental group were performed. Finally, data collected and analyzed by SPSS16 computer software (T- test, T-Paired, repeated measure ANOVA). RESULTS: Findings of the study showed that before the intervention there was no significant differences between the scores of different structures of HBM model in two groups (P > 0.05), after the intervention there was significant differences between experimental and control groups in the levels of knowledge, structures of HBM model and performance for preventing colorectal cancer (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Performing educational programs based on health belief model increases the knowledge and improves the attitudes and practices of students regarding prevention of the colorectal cancer.