The Effectiveness of Booklet of Anemia on the Behaviors of Adolescent Girls

Abstract

The prevalance of anemia shows an ascending trend annually in Indonesia. The Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey in 2012 reported that the prevalence rate of anemia in Indonesia for adolescent girls in the categories of 5–14 years of age and 10–19 years of age and of 15–24 years of age were 21.7%, 18.4% and 18.4% respectively. Based on the premilinary survey of North Sumatera Health Survey in 2017, there were 322 thousand adolescent girls had symptoms of anemia. The uppermost prevalence levels of anemia incidences in this province were reported in Binjai, Langkat, Deli Serdang, SerdangBedagai and Tebing. According to the preliminary survey among school adolescent girls at the State Senior High School SMA I KutalimBaru in Deli Serdang regency, there were 15 students took breakfast daily, 10 students sometimes took breakfast, 5 students almost never take breakfast, and 12 students limited their food and beverage consumption daily and never obtained health counseling pertaining to anemia.Concerning to this fact, the authors of the present study intended to assess the effectiveness of booklet of anemia on the behavior of school adolescent girls at the State Senior High School I KutalimBaru of Deli Serdang regency in 2018. The sample size was 156 students and samples were divided into two groups, 78 students for the intervension group and 78 students for the control group using stratified random sampling method. Results of the study revealed that the effectiveness of booklet on the knowledge, attitude and hemoglobin levels showed significant difference between the intervention group and the control group with ρ-value (0.000) < α (0.05). It was concluded that booklet of anemia gave a significant impact to the improvement of knowledge, attitude and hemoglobin levels due to anemia. It was suggested to encourage student adolescent girls to consume balanced nutrition, read booklet of anemia, increase and distribute up-date health guidance of anemia and further studies related with the practice of booklet of anemia for adolescent girls in enhancing their life healthy behaviors, such as menstruation, eating behaviors, resting pattern and other healthy behaviors associated with anemia.