The Effect of Health Promotion Program on Health Behaviors of Middle School Students in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Objective: This study was carried out to determine the effect of the health promotion program on the health behaviors of middle school students in the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: This quasi-experimental type study was carried out with 134 students in a public middle school in Kartal/Istanbul. The Information Form and Adolescent Lifestyle Profile II (ALP II) were used to collect the data. Within the scope of the health promotion program, seven hours of health education were given to the students. The data were collected electronically with Google form as an online before and after the education. Ethics committee approval was obtained for the study. Descriptive statistics and paired-samples t-test were used to evaluate the data. Results: The mean age of the students was 11.36±0.61, 54.5% were male and 64.9% were 6th -grade students. In the study, the mean ALP II pre-test score was 122.94±17.97 and the posttest mean score was 128.85±18.10. After the health promotion program, the ALP II total and health responsibility, physical activity, positive life perception, and spiritual health subscales post-test mean scores were found to be statistically significantly higher than the pre-test scores (p<0.05). Conclusion: As a result of the study, it was determined that the health promotion program increased the students' health responsibility, physical activity, positive perception of life, spiritual health, and the total scores of the ALP II scores.