Understanding the relationship between nutritional knowledge, self-efficacy, and self-concept of high-school students suffering from overweight.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Adolescents' overweight problems have been paid much attention due to their significant increase in recent decades in developed countries. Poor eating patterns subsequently affect their self-efficacy and self-concept. Therefore, paying attention to the nutritional knowledge of overweight students in this period is essential. This study examines the relationship between self-efficacy, self-concept, and nutritional knowledge of overweight students in the city of Isfahan. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The 140 overweight students who participated in this descriptive, analytical study with were randomly selected from one of five areas of Isfahan city in the year 2011-2012. Questionnaires for data collection in this study included demographic form, nutrition knowledge, Cooper Smith self-esteem, and general self-efficacy questionnaire. Data were analyzed by ANOVA, regression, and Pearson's correlation coefficient with statistical package in social sciences version 18. RESULTS: There was a significant correlation between whole nutritional knowledge and self-efficacy (r = 0.29, P > 0.001) and self-concept (r = 0.26, P = 0.002). There was a significant correlation between self-efficacy and self-concept (r = 0.3, P = 0.001). Furthermore, in the selection of food section there was no significant correlation with the self-concept (r = 0.147, P = 0.083). Regression analysis between self-concept, self-efficacy, family dimension, father's education, mother's education, father's occupation, mother's occupationa and income with nutrition knowledge showed that these eight variables explain 17.7% of the variance in health behaviors totally. CONCLUSION: By conducting this study, and revealing the direct relationship between nutritional knowledge, self-concept, and self-efficacy, we could conclude that if nutritional knowledge of overweight students is promoted, this factor would lead to an increase their self-concept and self-efficacy in order to adopt healthy behaviors and have the expected healthy eating and healthy life-style.

Diagnostic value of fetal movement counting by mother and the optimal recording duration.

INTRODUCTION: Fetal movement counting is a method used by mother to quantify her baby's movements. However, the optimal number of movements and the ideal duration of counting them have not been recognized. The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic value of the two common fetal movements counting methods by mother including "ten fetal movements counting in two hours" and "three fetal movements counting in one hour" and to compare the required mean time for counting fetal movements in the two methods. METHODS: 300 subjects were selected by random sampling among clients with complains of decreased fetal movements referring to AL-Zahra teaching hospital in Tabriz, Iran. Full training about how to perform the two methods of fetal movements counting and how to record in related tables was instructed by researcher. Immediately after counting movements, biophysical profile test was performed. RESULTS: Among 291 mothers in the two groups, 99.7% had active fetuses based on both methods of fetal movement counting. 96.9% of these active fetuses obtained score of 10 in biophysical profile. There was a statistically significant relation between the results of both two methods of fetal movement counting and the biophysical profile as the gold standard. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of both methods were equally 100%, 96%, 10% and 100%, respectively.Mean time (SD) for ten movement counting was 22.1(4.6) and for three movementcounting was 8.0(2.8) minutes CONCLUSION: The findings of this study showed that fetal movement counting test can be used as an initial screening method in predicting fetal health.