Background: Convulsion caused by fever is the most common neurological disorder and the most common type of convulsion in children under 6 years of age. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of educational intervention based on the health belief model on the awareness, attitude, and performance of mothers to prevent febrile seizures in children.
Methods: The present study was a semi-experimental interventional study conducted on 100 mothers with children under five years of age who were referred to Tehran Children's Medical Center Hospital, Iran, in 2020-2021. The samples were selected by convenience sampling method, and then were divided between two study groups by a simple random allocation method. The data collection tool was a questionnaire based on the health belief model, which was completed before and one month after the educational intervention by both the intervention and control groups. Then the educational intervention was held for the intervention group during 4 60-minute training sessions, and finally to analyze the data, descriptive tests, paired t-test, and independent t-test were used.
Findings: The average age of the mothers and children studied was 27 ± 5 years and 18.5 ± 7.0 months, respectively. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between previous education history and the mother's level of education, awareness, attitude, and performance in the field of febrile convulsions. The findings of the research showed that after the educational intervention, the amount of knowledge, perceived sensitivity, and perceived obstacles of mothers in the context of a child suffering from febrile convulsion increased (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The findings of the study show the effectiveness and efficiency of the health belief model in increasing awareness, perceived sensitivity, and perceived obstacles, and finally increasing the performance of the mothers studied in the field of preventing febrile convulsions in their children.
Type of Study:
Research |
Subject:
education health and promotion Received: 2022/05/16 | Accepted: 2023/07/23 | Published: 2024/07/5