Hepatitis B Prevention Education and Afghan Immigrant Students

Background: Unawareness and inappropriate attitude toward hepatitis B can expose healthy people, especially immigrants, to a higher risk of hepatitis B transmission. The present study aimed to determine the effect of hepatitis B prevention education by face-to-face and distance training on the knowledge and attitude of Afghan immigrant students. Methods: This randomized controlled trial was conducted on 128 voluntary immigrant nonmedical Afghan students of Imam Khomeini University in Qazvin City, Iran. The study subjects were randomly assigned to 4 groups (A1, A2, B1, & B2), and the training was performed using Solomon’s four-group-design. The A groups received face-to-face education, while the B groups received distance education through email and Telegram messenger. The required data were collected using a self-structured questionnaire at three-time intervals of before, immediately after, and one month after training. The collected data were analyzed by the Chi-squared test, Independent Samples t-test, Paired Samples t-test, and repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using SPSS. Results: Based on the study findings, the improvement of knowledge and attitude values was more significant in the face-to-face groups, compared to the distance education groups. However, there was a significant difference in both methods (P<0.001). Conclusion: Although knowledge improvement was higher in the face-to-face education groups, there was also an increase in the knowledge and attitude of the distance education group. Therefore, face-to-face education is preferred; however, using a combination of these educational methods could be beneficial.