Applying Facebook in the health education for underweight adolescent girls

5^th International Conference on Family Nursing

June 13-15, 2016 Philadelphia, USA

Ying-Tsen Lin and Yung-Mei Yang

Ton-Yen General Hospital, Taiwan
Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Influenced by societal culture and media advertisements, girls have changed their perception of body images, leading to pursue for a slim body via unhealthy weight-loss methods. Our aim is to design a Facebook-based health education approach to resolve the underweight problems for 17 junior high school girls. We utilized a one-group pretest-posttest design approach, followed by developing multimedia-based course content on Facebook and managing the Facebook group for 5 months. The assessment instruments cover body weight control knowledge scale, self-perceived severity scale, dietary status scale and BMI. The preliminary results indicated that underweight adolescent girls had changed their perception of body images: The percentage of girls believing they were underweight increased from 17.6% to 88.24%; learned correct knowledge on BMI: The correct response rate for body weight control knowledge scale increased from 59% to 100%; become more aware of the effects of being underweight on their health: The total mean score on the self-perceived severity scale increased from 3.03 to 3.96; learned how to monitor their BMI and gradually developed positive dietary habits with balanced diet: The total mean score increased from 2.61 to 3.34 and the average BMI increased from 15.41 to 16.15. Our Facebook-based course contents include essays, pictures, videos and news articles, all of which enhance students� learning incentives and reach a significant improvement in their knowledge on weight management, as well as change their attitude and behavior. This Facebook-based health education approach show great potential to other social group networks for health-related matters.

Biography :

Ying-Tsen Lin has earned her MS degree in Community Health Nursing from Kaohsiung Medical University in 2015. Since then, she works at Yon-Yen General Hospital in Taiwan as an Advanced Practice Nurse, Health Educator and Case Manager of Smoking Cessation. She not only provides smokers with adequate information about tobacco hazards but monitors their management of smoking cessation including daily smoking amounts and nicotine withdrawal symptoms. To prevent the smokers from relapse and establish a tobacco-free home for health promotion, she encourages them to return to the clinic regularly and to receive a more complicated course for longterm smoking cessation.

Email: yingtsenlin@gmail.com