title: Investigation of educational intervention based on Theory of Planned Behavior on breakfast consumption among middle school students of Qom City in 2012.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Eating breakfast is crucial for adolescents to be healthy. It also improves students' capacity of learning and doing school homework. Although healthy habits such as eating breakfast, weight control, and regular sleep increase the lifespan in adults, the effects of healthy habits on school-age children have not been studied much. The present study aimed at investigating the impact of an educational program based on Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) on eating breakfast among middle school students.
  
  
  METHODS
  This interventional study was conducted on sixth-grade students in Qom City during the academic year 2012-2013. First, 97 students were randomly assigned to the experimental group and 97 other students were assigned to the control group. Then, a questionnaire was developed on eating breakfast by the researchers according to the TPB. A pilot study was conducted to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. To assess the validity of the questionnaire, advice by a panel of experts was sought. To carry out a pre-test, both groups answered the questions. After analyzing the pre-test results, the required content was developed for the experimental group. Educational methods included delivering speech, discussion groups, pamphlets, and posters. The required educationalcontent was provided for students during five sessions and for parents in one session. To determine the effect of educational intervention, a post-test study was carried out 2 months after the intervention. Collected data were analyzed using independent t-test, χ,([2]) and repeated measures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In the experimental group, 36.7% of students were eating breakfast at least in a day of a week, before educational intervention. After implementation of the educational program, only 32.7% of them were continuing their past habit. There was a significant difference between themean scores of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, intention, and practice of eating breakfast in the experimental and control groups (P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference between the mean scores of subjective norms after implementing the educational program in both groups (P < 0.26).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Using the TPB improved students' intentions and behavior of eating breakfast. Thus, it seems necessary to consider all effective environmental factors on the subjective norms in the education of healthy eating behaviors or improving breakfast-eating practice among students.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
authors.forename: Zabihollah
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gharlipour
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohtasham
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ghaffari
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hoseini
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Akbar Babaei
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Heidarabadi
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Department of Public Health, School of Health, Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Shahrekord, Iran.
authors.forename: Elahe
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tavassoli
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hozuri
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
authors.forename: Shahram Arsang
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, School of Health, Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Bushehr, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahnoush
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reisi
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Research Deputy, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sahraiyan
keywords: Eating breakfast; Theory of Planned Behavior; students