The Effect of Female Health Volunteers Education on knowledge and Attitude of Urban Population about Mental Health in Isfahan province

Introduction: One of the challenges of medical universities is to deliver medical and health instructions and the related concepts from the higher university levels to the basic levels of the society. The absolute need to have a communicating bridge between the universities and the urban society, has led to more attention to community health volunteers as the potential source for such a link. This study attempted to determine the effect of female health volunteer education on the knowledge and attitude towards mental health in urban society of Isfahan. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with two group/pre and post-test design carried out in 2003. Four hundred people of Falavarjan city as well as the same number of people in Khomeini-Shahr city were randomly assigned to complete a valid and reliable questionnaire for knowledge & Attitude as the pretest. Then after a one year period of mental health educational interventions by health volunteers in Falavarjan, the post-test was accomplished in both cities. The data was analyzed by SPSS software using t-test and Chi2. Results: The pre-interventional scores of knowledge and attitude in the experiment group were 40.5% and 54.5%, respectively which increased significantly to 64.2% and 80.2% , respectively, after intervention. In the control group, the pre- and post-interventional scores of knowledge were 41.5 and 41.9 respectively which had no significant difference. The respective rates for attitude were 63.1 and 49.9 which showed no significant difference before and after intervention. The post interventional scores of knowledge and attitude were significantly higher in the experiment group, compared to the control group. Conclusion: For promoting mental health in urban areas, we can rely on the efficacy of the stepwise knowledge transfer from the higher health levels (third level mental health physician) to health–educating volunteers and from them to community health volunteers and finally to urban families.