Systematic Review: Effect of Health Education Intervention on Improving Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Adolescents on Malnutrition

Nutrients. 2020 Aug 13;12(8):2426. doi: 10.3390/nu12082426.

Abstract

Adolescence is a phase in the life cycle of human beings. Adequate knowledge, attitudes and practices towards malnutrition are necessary for proper growth and development and for their future children. This systematic review aimed to determine the effect of health education intervention to improve the knowledge, attitudes and practices of adolescents on malnutrition. PubMed, Scopus, clinical trials, CINAHL, SAGE, Science Direct and Medline were searched according to Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meat-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to identified published studies from January 2013 to December 2019 based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of eight studies were included in this review. Data extraction was done based on randomized controlled trial only. Three out of the eight studies had low risk of bias, the overall evidence of the study was moderate. Findings from this study suggest that health education intervention among adolescents have significantly improved their knowledge, attitudes and practices. More specific interventions should be conducted in low and middle income countries since they bear more of the burden of malnutrition globally.

Keywords: adolescents; attitude; health education; intervention; knowledge; malnutrition; nutrition; practice; risk of bias; undernutrition.

Publication types

  • Systematic Review

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adolescent Behavior / psychology*
  • Feeding Behavior / psychology*
  • Female
  • Health Education / methods*
  • Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Malnutrition / psychology*