Strategies to non communicable diseases prevention improvement from the viewpoints of students in Isfahan: A qualitative research

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Full health is one of the basic human rights and requires a healthy lifestyle. Public continuous education, especially among the students who are a great target group and the future of the country, is the best way to modify lifestyle. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the factors affecting the prevention of non communicable diseases from students' viewpoints in Isfahan in the academicyear of 2016–2017. METHODS: This study was carried out through the qualitative approach and conventional content analysis method. Participants included 27 students who were selected by convenient and purposeful sampling method with maximum variation. Method of data collection was semi structured interviews with sound recordings with note–taking, and data analysis method was inductive content analysis. RESULTS: After removing repetitive codes and merging the similar ones, 1237 codes were obtained from interviews that were placed in 7 main categories and 18 subcategories. The main categories included “grand health policy-makings,” “the role of the educational system in promoting health,” “schools and healthy nutrition models,” “schools and sports and physical activity development,” “informal learning,” “preventive strategies in health promotion,”and “lifestyle modification.” CONCLUSION: It seems that controlling and improving the factors affecting lifestyle and making school education more effective are the main factors that influence the efficacy of preventive educational programs of non communicable diseases.