Effectiveness of Education based on Health Belief Model (HBM) on Preventive Behaviors of Pesticide Exposure in Agricultural Worker

There have been various problems toward farmers health associated with unscientific use of pesticide in developing countries including Iran. Considering of the nature of biocides, negative impacts of pesticides are inevitable, therefore the promotion of awareness of workers for prevention of diseases is important. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of HBM in promoting Preventive behaviors of pesticide exposure.
In this study, as an interventional research, two groups128 workers (54 intervention and 54 control groups) were randomly selected from Baiaz (control region) and Aminshahr (intervention region). The intervention group was participated in two health education sessions based on components of health belief model. Data was collected before training and 2months after training by interview using a questionnaire. The validity and reliability of different parts of questionnaire were proved during the pilot study. Data was analyzed using SPSS18 software.
The comparisons of the demographic characteristics between the intervention and control groups were not significantly different. The results of this study showed a significant increase in the mean scores of knowledge (P=0.002) and HBM components (P=0.000), and also the mean score of Preventive behaviors increased after intervention (P=0.000).
The results of this study indicated that the HBM model confirmed the efficiency of HBM in adopting Preventive behaviors of pesticide exposure affective and the comprehensive intervention strategy is necessary for promotion of safe behaviors exposure.