puberty health education in iranian teenagers: self - learning or lecture and discussion panel ?

background. teenagers, a huge age group in developing countries, face a period with many physical, mental and social problems. appropriate health education concerning their periodic development is of importance in community health services. the present study performed a comparative assessment of subjects’ knowledge, attitude and practice, concerning puberty health programs. method. in an interventional study, 350 girl students aged between 12 and 14 were randomly selected through a two-phase sampling and divided into two parallel groups. their knowledge, attitude and practice concerning puberty health were measured by a questionnaire for each subject. then, one group was trained through a self - learning pamphlet and another participated in a discussion panel and some lectures about puberty health. mean scores were obtained by a test and compared between groups as well as in pre- and post intervention using student t-test and paired t-test. results. both groups were similar in scores before intervention. after intervention, mean score for knowledge significantly increased in both groups (p<0.001). in the self-learner group, mean scores for attitude were not significantly different after education (p=0.16 & 0.056, respectively) but in the other group, they were statistically remarkable (p<0.001& p=0.0001, respectively). the comparison of scores obtained in two groups showed significant increases in knowledge and practice levels through discussion panel (p<0.001) but no significant difference was observed concerning attitude (p=0.84). conclusion. discussion panel is more effective than self-learning despite traditional and cultural obstacles in puberty health education for iranian teenage girls.