Hepatitis B Prevention Education and Afghan Immigrant Students

Unawareness and inappropriate attitude toward hepatitis B can expose healthy people, especially immigrants, to a higher risk of hepatitis B transmission. The present study aimed to determine the effect of hepatitis B prevention education by face-to-face and distance training on the knowledge and attitude of Afghan immigrant students. 

This randomized controlled trial was conducted on 128 voluntary immigrant nonmedical Afghan students of Imam Khomeini University in Qazvin City, Iran. The study subjects were randomly assigned to 4 groups (A1, A2, B1, & B2), and the training was performed using Solomon’s four-group-design. The A groups received face-to-face education, while the B groups received distance education through email and Telegram messenger. The required data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire at three-time intervals of before, immediately after, and one month after training. The collected data were analyzed by the Chi-squared test, Independent Samples t-test, Paired Samples t-test, and repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using SPSS.

Based on the study findings, the improvement of knowledge and attitude values was more significant in the face-to-face groups, compared to the distance education groups. However, there was a significant difference in both methods (P<0.001). 

Although knowledge improvement was higher in the face-to-face education groups, there was also an increase in the knowledge and attitude of the distance education group. Therefore, face-to-face education is preferred; however, using a combination of these educational methods could be beneficial.