The effect of educational intervention based on health belief model and social support on testicular self-examination in sample of Iranian men

BACKGROUND: Testicular Self-Examination (TSE) causes earlier diagnosis of Testicular cancer (TC). Hence, all men aged between15 to 35 years should perform TSE every month. This study aims to survey the effect of educational intervention based on health belief model and social support on testicular self-examination in men aged between 15 to 35 years of Fasa City, Fars province, Iran. METHODS: In this quasi-experimental study, 200 men (100 in the experimental group and 100 in the control group) in Fasa City, Fars, Iran, were conducted from June 2018 to August 2019. The educational intervention for the experimental group consisted of six training sessions (testicular cancer, its prevalence and types, its risk factors, symptoms, infected areas, diagnosis, side-effects and its severity, understanding about testicular self-examination and its importance, benefits, and barriers of self-examination and correct way of doing TSE were discussed, role of social support). A questionnaire consisting of demographic information, knowledge, HBM construct, and social support was used to measure testicular self-examination before, 3 months after the intervention, and 6 months later. Data were analyzed using SPSS-22 via chi-squared, independent samples t-test, Mann-Whitney, and repeated measures ANOVA at a significance level of 0.5. RESULTS: The mean age of the men was 27.26 ± 3.16 years in the experimental group and 27.39 ± 3.12 years in the control group. Three months after the intervention and 6 months after the intervention, the experimental group showed a significant increase in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, self-efficacy, cues to action, social support, and testicular self-examination performance compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: This study showed the effectiveness of the intervention based on the HBM constructs and social support in the adoption of testicular self-examination in 3 and 6 months post-intervention in men aged between 15 to 35 years. Hence, these models can act as a framework for designing and implementing educational interventions for testicular self-examination.