Effects of a behavior development program on food consumption behaviors and health status of menopausal women at Pho Chai District, Roi Et Province

Abstract

The objectives of this quasi-experimental research were to examine the effects of the behavior development program on food consumption behaviors and health status compared between before and after the program for the experimental group, and between the experimental group and a comparison group. The samples were menopausal women aged 45-59, who were in early and late natural menopausal transition, and lived in Tambon Chieng Mai and Tambon Sa-Ad. They were selected by purposive sampling technique as per inclusion criteria to be in the experimental group and comparison group, respectively, 33 persons in each group. The experimental tool was the Behavior Development Program, developed by researcher (CVI 1) based on Pender’s Health Promotion model. The data collection tools were 1) questionnaires consists of three parts: general data, the food consumption behaviors (CVI=.78 and reliability= .81) and menopausal symptoms (CVI =1 and reliability=.87),  and  2) the health data record form. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. The results were as follows. After the experiment, the mean score for food consumption behaviors of the experimental group were significantly higher than before the experiment and that of the comparison group (p < .05). In addition, mean scores for BMI, systolic blood pressure, and menopausal symptoms of the experimental group were significantly lower than before the experiment (p<.05). The comparisons after the experiment between the two groups  showed that mean scores of systolic blood pressure and menopausal symptoms of the experimental group were lower than the comparison group (p< .05). Therefore, this behavior development program for menopausal women should be implemented to improve food consumption behaviors and health status among menopausal women receiving services in other Tambon health promoting hospitals.  Research should be conducted to assess the effects of the program on sustainability of food consumption behaviors and health status.