THE EFFECT OF EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION BASED ON HEALTH BELIEF MODEL ON VOLUNTARY HIV TESTING IN COUPLES REFERRING TO THE PRE-MARRIAGE COUNSELING CENTER OF BUSHEHR: A WEB-BASED STUDY

Although no definitive cure has been discovered for AIDS yet, this disease can be controlled with early diagnosis and current medications Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effect of a web-based educational intervention according to the health belief model on HIV testing in Bushehr marriage volunteer couples.

The present study was a quasi-experimental study done on 122 couples who volunteered for marriage (61 couples in the intervention group and 61 couples in the control group) referred to the Nabi Akram Center in Bushehr. The control group received training and routine services, and the intervention group, received a web-based multimedia intervention based on Health Belief Model in addition to the above services. The data were collected by a questionnaire consisting of three sections of demographic knowledge, Health Belief Model constructs, and items for measuring behavior. After data collection, the analysis was performed by STATA software ver.15. The significance level of statistical tests was considered 0.05.

In the intervention group, there was a statistically significant difference between awareness and all constructs except perceived intensity before and after the intervention (P<0.001), while in the control group, no statistically significant difference was seen in any of the variables after the intervention (P>0.001). Changes in the mean scores of awareness and all constructs between the two groups during the study period had a statistically significant difference and were higher in the intervention group (P<0.001). Regarding HIV testing, there was a statistically significant difference between the two intervention and control groups after the educational intervention and HIV testing was significantly higher in the intervention group.

Web-based education, according to the health belief model, is effective and can be used to encourage young couples to test for AIDS for early diagnosis.