Effect of Educational Intervention Based on the Health Belief Model on the Improvement of the Health Performance of Female Hairdressers in Qom, Iran

 Beauty salons as public places can be responsible for the transmission of various diseases. Among them, infectious diseases transmitted through the blood, such as AIDS, hepatitis B and C, which can lead to death, are more significant than others. In this regard, the present study aimed to determine the effect of educational intervention, based on the health belief model (HBM), on the improvement of health-related behavior of female hairdressers in Qom, Iran in 2018.

The present intervention study was performed on 88 subjects who were selected using multi-stage random sampling. The participants were divided into two groups of intervention (n=44) and control (n=44). The data collection tool was a health status checklist and a researcher-made questionnaire based on the HBM whose validity and reliability were confirmed. The intervention group was subjected to educational intervention sessions and after three months, both groups completed the same questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 21), descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequency, mean, and standard deviation), and inferential statistics (Chi-squared test, Mann Whitney, independent t-test, and paired t-test). It should be noted a p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean and standard deviation of age in the intervention and control groups were 33.36±8.3 and 36.31±10.3 years, respectively. At the beginning of the study, no significant difference was observed between the groups regarding their demographic characteristics, the HBM constructs and performance model were not significantly observed at the beginning of the study between the experimental and control groups (P <0.05). However, based on the results, after the intervention, the mean score of knowledge and HBM constructs (except for the perceived barriers after the educational intervention) increased significantly in the interventional group, compared to the control group (P<0.001). Moreover, before the intervention, there was no significant difference between the mean scores of health-related behaviors and checklist results of the two groups (P<0.05). However, three months after the intervention, the mean scores of health-related behaviors and checklist of the intervention group were significantly higher than that of the control group (P<0.001).

Given the significant change in the level of knowledge and HBM constructs as well as the improvement in the health-related behaviors of the intervention group after the educational intervention, it can be concluded that the HBM can be used as a framework in designing special training programs for hairdressers.