Effect of health education intervention on the prevalence of malnutrition among adolescent girls at El- Kharga City

Background: Malnutrition remains a major health problem. Early identification and prevention
of malnutrition will prevent a multitude of physical, emotional, social, and economic problems.
Aim of the study: was to evaluate the effect of an educational intervention program in
improving the knowledge and health status for malnourished girls in El-kharga City. Subjects
& Methods: Research design: A quasi-experimental research design with pre-post tests was
used to evaluate the effectiveness of nutritional education intervention on improving girls'
knowledge and health status for them. Setting: the study was carried out at homes in the
selected district in El-kharga City. Subjects: The study included 80 girls suffering from
malnutrition; those were exposed to the health education intervention. Tools of data
collection: Two tools were used to collect the necessary data (A) Structure interview
questionnaire to collect data about demographic characteristics of study girls such as age,
level of education, occupation……etc , and their knowledge about nutrition and their
nutritional risk habits. (b) Assessment sheet to assess body mass index and level of
hemoglobin. Results: revealed that the minority of studied group had limited satisfactory
knowledge pre intervention assessment, which improved after the implementation of the
educational program. There was also improvement in their nutritional health status by taking
balanced diet also and decreasing the risky dietary habits. Conclusion: The studied group < br />had limited knowledge regarding malnutrition before the educational program, which improved
after the implementation program, but still more stress is needed for those vulnerable groups.
Recommendations: The study recommended the following: health education to girls about
balanced diet, and risky habits that lead to malnutrition should provided to them in all health
care setting, booklet contain information about balanced diet blasé poster should be available
in all health care setting and Future study in other ages to detect prevalence of malnutrition.