The Effect of Educational Intervention Based on the Health Belief Model on Promoting Perceived Self-efficacy to Prevent HIV/AIDS Among the High School Students

Promoting awareness and correcting health beliefs about preventive behaviors in adolescents and young people are the most effective ways to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. This study was conducted to assess the influence of the educational intervention on the promotion of perceived selfefficacy to inhibit HIV/AIDS among high school students.

This quasi-experimental investigation included 230 high school students in Asadabad and was conducted in 2021. Following the selection of students by the multi-stage cluster sampling method, they were allotted into two equal (intervention and control) groups of 115 individuals. The educational program for the intervention group included five one-hour sessions of the students’ social network (Shad), which was implemented by a participatory method based on questions and answers and group discussion, as well as practical performance. A reliable and valid questionnaire comprising three parts (personal attributes, awareness, and health belief model [HBM] constructs) was employed for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using different tests, including Fisher’s exact test, the chi-square test, ANCOVA, and independent and paired sample t tests in SPSS software, version 16.

Educational intervention based on HBM not only affected the promotion of awareness (P < 0.05), self-efficacy, perceived susceptibility, severity, and benefits but also reduced students’ perceived barriers to preventive behaviors (P < 0.05).

Our findings revealed that the educational intervention based on HBM affected health belief constructs concerning HIV/AIDS. Thus, the results of this study can be beneficial for school health education and health educators who design disease education programs.