The Effectiveness of Health Education for Weight Reduction among Overweight Menopause Women by Applying the Self- Efficacy Theory and Social Support at the Ban Khu Subdistrict, Yangsisurach District, Mahasarakham Province

Abstract

Obesity is a risk factor for chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and asthma.
A high proportion of females in the menopauses having the above mentioned diseases are obese. It was
of interest for the investigators how to achieve weight reduction for women in the menopause. A quasiexperimental
research approach was chosen for this study in order to assess the effectiveness of a health
education program by applying the Self- Efficacy Theory and Social Support in an effort to reduce overweight
of women in the menopause residing in Ban- Khu Subdistrict, Yangsisurach District, Mahasarakham Province
Seventy women in the menopause with overweight were allocated to an experimental group and a comparison
group, consisting of 35 females each. The project was implemented for 12 weeks. The experimental group was
exposed to health education and additional activities such as lecturing about obesity and weight reduction
using a VDO, group discussions about how to achieve weight reduction, introducing peers who were healthy
and not overweight, self observation and regular weight recording. A hand book about weight reduction was
also distributed. Information was collected by means of a questionnaire. Descriptive data were presented as
frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. For comparative analysis the Paired Sample t-test and
Independent t-test at 0.05 level of significance was applied.
After the implementation, the mean scores of the experimental group about know-how, self-efficacy,
outcome of expectation and practice of weight reduction was higher in comparison with the scores before
implementation and significantly above the scores of the comparison group (p-value < 0.001). In addition, the
mean BMI of the experimental group were lower than before and lower in comparison with the control group
(p-value < 0.05).
It is suggested that a similar approach as for this study should also be applied for weight reduction of
menopause females elsewhere.