Understanding Female Students’ Needs to Develop Health Promoting School Programme: An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis

BACKGROUND: This study was carried out on Iranian female adolescents to understand health needs for the purpose of designing health promoting intervention in schools. METHODS: In this exploratory qualitative study, two focus group discussion (15 teachers) and 30 individual in-depth interviews were conducted among female adolescents in the eighth grade in Zahedan, Iran. Qualitative content analysis was used for data evaluation. RESULTS: The views of students and teachers demonstrated nine of needs including: informing students about the schools’ health project aims, education and training all dimensions of health with an emphasis on mental health, use of experts in various fields for education from other organisations, employing capable and trusted counselors in schools, utilisation of a variety of teaching methods, activating reward systems for encouraging students’ participation in group activities, teaching communication and the ability to establish good relationships with parents and strategies for resolving family conflict, teaching parents and students high-risk behaviours and strategies for handling them as well as reforming wrong attitudes and indigenous sub-culture. CONCLUSION: This study found the different needs of Iranian female students compared to other cultures about a health promoting school programme. Therefore, their contribution can provide an insight for formulating policies and intervention in schools.