KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF IRANIAN FEMALE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT IRON SUPPLEMENTATION: EVALUATION OF IRON SUPPLEMENTATION NATIONAL PROGRAM

Background and Aim: to evaluate the Iran s iron supplementation national program in high school girls Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 399 high school girls in 2017. Using a researcher-made questionnaire, we gathered the required data. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software (V. 20).Results: The mean (SD) of knowledge and attitude of the students was 6.65 (2.18) and 37.43 (5.24), respectively. There were significant associations between type of school (public/non-profit) and mean score of the students’ knowledge (P=0.001). Meanwhile, there were statistically meaningful relation between iron supplement usage by the respondents and their mean of knowledge (P= 0.024) and attitude (P=0.001). 77% of the respondents reported they used iron supplementation and 89% of them consumed iron supplements distributed in school. The most influential people encouraging them to take the pills were parents and school forces. From the students point of view, the most effective intervention to encourage them to use iron supplement was to invite clinicians and staff at health centers and the least effective ones were poster placement and distribution of educational pamphlets. Also, the most reasons for lack of willingness to use iron supplements by students was bad taste while taking and nausea after taking the pills.Conclusion: Emphasis on continuing the implementation of the program along with strengthening some parts of the process such as program notification phase, doing proper and effective activities to encourage students, distributing iron pills with better taste and fewer side effects, and providing the necessary supplies for consuming iron tablets are suggested.

کلیدواژه ها:

Iron supplement ، high school ، female ، Persian ، National Program