Assessing an Educational Intervention Program on Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour Towards Pregnancy Prevention Based on Health Belief Model Amongst Adolescent Girls in Northern Ghana

November 4, 2018 updated by: Ibrahim Yakubu, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Assessing an Educational Intervention Program on Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour Towards Pregnancy Prevention Based on Health Belief Model Amongst Adolescent Girls in Northern Ghana: A Clustered Randomized Trial

The study is designed to assess the impact of an educational intervention program on the knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards pregnancy prevention based on Health Belief Model amongst adolescent girls in Northern Ghana. It is a randomised clustered controlled trial to be conducted on Senior High School students in Northern Ghana The study hypothesises that knowledge, attitude and behaviour of adolescents towards pregnancy prevention will differ between the groups.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Adolescent pregnancy is a global problem because of its health, social, economic and political repercussions on the globe. According to WHO about 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 and some 1 million girls under 15years give birth every year, mostly in low and middle-income countries. Babies born to adolescent mothers face a substantially higher risk of dying than those born to women aged 20 to 24. Pregnant adolescents also develop psychological problems from social stigma, suffering physical and domestic violence in her attempt to meeting the demands of pregnancy and childbearing. Children born to adolescents are at risk of malnutrition, low mental and physical development, inappropriate social connection with parents and poor education.

The factors associated with adolescent pregnancies include early marriages, poor social and economic support. Curiosity and peer pressure, lack of sexuality education, poor reproductive health services and poor attitude of health workers to providing contraceptive services for adolescents amongst others.

Ghana developed a number of policies to improve adolescent development through the provision of youth focus friendly health services in the country. However, adolescent pregnancy has not declined as expected.

The Health Belief Model is one of the appropriate health promotion models designed to predict preventive health behaviours, and it has enhanced preventive health behaviours in breast cancer screening and prevention of risky sexual behaviours in adolescents as well as prevention of iron deficiency anaemia. Schools are the best site for providing health education and promotion interventions because students spend most of the time in school and health promoters have the opportunity of reaching a large number of participants. Students of Senior High Schools in Ghana are adolescents and most of them are sexually active and has little knowledge about sex education and use of contraceptives. Therefore, providing comprehensive sex education to adolescents in schools will increase their knowledge; enhance their attitude and behavior towards pregnancy prevention.

This study, therefore, is intended to assess the impact of an educational intervention program on the knowledge, attitude and behavior towards pregnancy prevention based on Health Belief Model amongst adolescent girls in Northern Ghana.

The main objective is to assess the impact of an educational intervention program on knowledge, attitude and behavior towards pregnancy prevention based on Health Belief Model amongst adolescent girls in Northern Ghana.

Study design: The study shall be an interventional research using Clustered Randomized Controlled Trial to assess the impact of an educational program on the knowledge, attitude and behavior of adolescents towards teenage pregnancy using a researcher-structured questionnaire based on the Health Belief Model and a validated psychometric "Teen Attitude Pregnancy Scale" Intervention: A comprehensive sex education program shall be delivered in approximately six (6) sessions comprising of an introductory lesson on susceptibility and severity of teenage pregnancy, personal and community values, female reproductive system, contraceptives and decision-making. A qualified midwife shall conduct the health education program. Teaching and learning materials shall include flip charts, contraceptives, short videos, role-play scenarios among others. A practical demonstration, group discussion, lectures, role-play and interactive learning methods shall be employed. Attitudinal and behavioural intervention strategies shall be adopted for the study based on the Taxonomy of Behavior Change Techniques for interventions

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

363

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Ghana
    • Northern Region
      • Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana, 00233
        • Kalpohin Senior High School
      • Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana
        • Vittin Senoir High School

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

13 years to 19 years (ADULT, CHILD)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Only unmarried adolescent female high school students shall be included in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Girls who do not want to participate and those who do not fall within the adolescent age group as well as married adolescents shall be excluded

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Intervention group
This group shall be given a comprehensive sex education in approximately six sessions.
Behavioral: comprehensive sex education
A comprehensive sex education program to be delivered in approximately six (6) sessions comprising of an introductory lesson on susceptibility and severity of teenage pregnancy, personal and community values, female reproductive system, contraception and decision-making skills.
NO_INTERVENTION: Control group
This group will not be given any form of education.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Health Belief Model constructs
Time Frame: 3 months and 6 months

A questionnaire designed by the researchers based on the HBM six constructs shall be used to assess adolescents perception towards pregnancy prevention. A total of 58 items were used.

The items specifically assess adolescents' opinion on their chances of getting pregnant; adolescents' opinion on the seriousness of adolescent pregnancy and the consequences of getting pregnant; adolescents' opinion on the importance delaying pregnancy, adolescents' opinion on the barriers of delaying pregnancy; and adolescents' confidence on their ability to delay pregnancy.

The degree with which participants perceived each of these items were recorded using a five-point Likert's scale ranging from "strongly disagree for a lower score to strongly agree for a higher score". Each domain has the same minimum score of zero (0) and a maximum score of 40. All the scores for the HBM domain variables shall be expressed in percentages for analysis.
3 months and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Abstinence from sexual intercourse
Time Frame: 3 months and 6 months

Two (2) questions shall be used to assess abstinence practice. One question will assess participants' intention to abstain from sexual intercourse.

Abstinence practice is a binary variable where a score of one (1) will be labelled "yes" and Zero (0) labelled "no". The question on intention is on a three-scale item; 1=definitely will, 2=not sure and 3=definitely won't. A score of one denotes low abstinence intention and a score of three denotes high abstinence intention. The intention scores shall be expressed in percentages for analysis.
3 months and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Ibrahim Yakubu, Tehran University Of Medical Sciences

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

February 20, 2018

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

August 30, 2018

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

August 30, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 16, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 23, 2017

First Posted (ACTUAL)

December 27, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

November 6, 2018

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 4, 2018

Last Verified

September 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IR.TUMS.SPH.REC.1396.4089
  • GHS-ERC:020-03-18 (OTHER: Ghana Health Service Ethics Review Committee)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

The data may be shared on request.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

6 months after the study

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

If data is requested especially by journals it would be sent by email.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF
  • ANALYTIC_CODE
  • CSR

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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