Effect of Education on Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Female Students of Abarkouh Par-medicine School for Saving Paper Consumption

Paper is a strategic commodity that about 85-90% of it, comes from natural forest trees and planting hands and has assigned a large quota of domestic, administrative and commercial waste. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of education on knowledge, attitude and practice of female students of Abarkouh Paramedicine School on saving paper consumption, so if necessary, further education to be considered. This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in 2017 by census method on 90 female students of Abarkouh Paramedicine School. Data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of four sections: demographic information, 17 knowledge questions, 16 attitude questions and 14 practice questions. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire before distribution were confirmed by Cronbach's alpha of 0.887. Before distributing questionnaires, buckets were placed in the dormitory and college two months ago and the amount of paper collected through weighing was obtained. The questionnaires were distributed before and after education through a brochure. After data collection, data were analyzed by SPSS21 and descriptive statistics, T-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and comparison of the effectiveness of education before and after education using Paired sample test. The mean age of participants in the study was 27.54±7.59. As the age increased, knowledge increased, but the attitude and practice decreased. But in general, their differences were not significant. The mean score of knowledge and practice after education increased and the attitude score increased slightly. Based on Paired sample test, there was a significant difference between the knowledge and practice scores before and after training (P-value ≤ 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference for attitude (P-value = 0.363). Due to the weakness of the knowledge, attitude and practice of students as an influential group in the future of society, planning for the institutionalization of the culture of saving paper consumption and the necessary education to increasing knowledge and practice Community members is recommended.