The Effectiveness of an Educational Intervention on Helicobacter pylori for University Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Introduction:Helicobacter pylori infection is widespread and harmful, rendering its eradication a serious public health problem. Undergraduate students' general understanding of H. pylori infection is relatively poor. This was a second-phase research study to evaluate the efficacy of an educational intervention in raising awareness among university students.Methods: A quasi-experimental approach was employed, with 108 undergraduate students at King Saud University as participants. First, during the October 2021 academic year, data were gathered using a validated survey. The survey was divided into sociodemographic characteristics and H. pylori knowledge. Second, we assessed the effectiveness of an educational intervention to increase university students' awareness of the topic.Results: Before the intervention, the percentage of students that had good (9.3%), fair (28.7%) and poor (62%) knowledge of H. pylori infection changed to 55.6%, 41.7%, and 2.8% respectively. There was a significant increase in overall and domain-wise mean knowledge score after the educational intervention (p = 0.001). The pretest knowledge was independent of all socio-demographic variables except "whether or not they had heard about H. pylori infection" (χ ²= 8.666, p = 0.013).Conclusion: Educational intervention may help increase students' awareness of H. pylori infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]