[Effect of nutrition education program on the recommended weight gain in during pregnancy application of health belief model: a randomized clinical trial]

ABSTRACT

Nutrition in pregnancy has an important role in fetus and mother health, and also in the pregnancy outcome. One of the significant changes related to nutrition is weight gain of pregnant women as one of the influencing indicators which is measured by Body Mass Index [BMI]. This study was conducted to determine nutritional education effect upon pregnancy weight gain in pregnant women on the basis of health belief model [HBM] in Gonabad, Iran. This is a quasi-experimental randomized and controlled study on 110 pregnant women referring to health centers in Gonabad, Iran. They were divided into experimental and control groups who participated in the study, in the year of 2009. The data of two groups were collected by reliable and valid questionnaires during the first part of pregnancy care in pre-test stage. Then, two educational sessions were held for the experimental group. Post test was done for both groups in the last stage of pregnancy care, and the data were analyzed by paired T, T independent, the correlation coefficient, Mann-Whitney, and Chi-square. A p<0.05 was considered to be significant. No significant differences were found between the education, parity, abortion, jobs and the mean age of the two groups. After the intervention, the mean score of knowledge, perceived susceptibility, severity, threat, benefits and barriers and nutritional behavior in the experimental group, significantly changed in the control group [p<0.01]. Moreover, statistical analyses showed a significant difference between the two groups in gaining recommended weight in pregnancy. While 77.78% of the experimental group members achieved recommend MBI, just 32.29% of those in the control group had a gain in this criterion. This study proved that HBM application in nutritional education was successfully effective to gain recommended weight in pregnancy, so that increasing suitable weight gain reached maximum and un-standardized weight gain reached minimum in accordance with women BMI