The Effectiveness of an Educational Intervention on Helicobacter pylori for University Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Taghreed A Hafiz,1 Juliana Linnette D’Sa,2 Sahar Zamzam,2 Maria Liza Visbal Dionaldo,3 Esraa Aldawood,1 Nouf Madkhali,4 Murad A Mubaraki1 1Clinical Laboratory Sciences Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 2Maternal and Child Health Nursing Department, College of Nursing, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Nursing, Oklahoma City, OK, USA; 4Virology Department, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaCorrespondence: Taghreed A Hafiz, Email thafiz@ksu.edu.saIntroduction: Helicobacter pylori infection is widespread and harmful, rendering its eradication a serious public health problem. Undergraduate students’ general understanding of H. pylori infection is relatively poor. This was a second-phase research study to evaluate the efficacy of an educational intervention in raising awareness among university students.Methods: A quasi-experimental approach was employed, with 108 undergraduate students at King Saud University as participants. First, during the October 2021 academic year, data were gathered using a validated survey. The survey was divided into sociodemographic characteristics and H. pylori knowledge. Second, we assessed the effectiveness of an educational intervention to increase university students’ awareness of the topic.Results: Before the intervention, the percentage of students that had good (9.3%), fair (28.7%) and poor (62%) knowledge of H. pylori infection changed to 55.6%, 41.7%, and 2.8% respectively. There was a significant increase in overall and domain-wise mean knowledge score after the educational intervention (p = 0.001). The pretest knowledge was independent of all socio-demographic variables except “whether or not they had heard about H. pylori infection” (χ 2= 8.666, p = 0.013).Conclusion: Educational intervention may help increase students’ awareness of H. pylori infections.Keywords: awareness, infectious disease, H. pylori infection, education-intervention, undergraduate student, infection control