Education Based Health Belief's Model Impact on Promoting Preventive Behaviors Related to Hypertension Disease

Abstract Background: Hypertension is the leading cause of many diseases, including heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and many internal diseases.Methods: This pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted using 128 staff of Iran University of medical sciences. They were randomly assigned to an intervention (n=64) or a control (n=64) group. Data collection tool was a questionnaire based on health belief model constructs, which included 42 questions. Results were interpreted using ANCOVA or robust ANCOVA as appropriate.Results: ANCOVA showed improvement in the cues to action of participants following educational intervention (P = 0.011). Robust ANCOVA revealed that the intervention was successful for participants with low to moderate initial levels of knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, and self-efficacy scores. The levels of these components didn’t change in participants with very high baseline scores. Compared to control group, regardless on baseline score, the perceived benefits and practice (behavior) of participants at intervention group were improved significantly (P < 0.05).Conclusion: The results of this study showed that education based on the health belief model is effective in promoting hypertension preventive behaviors in university staff.