EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF AN EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION ON PARENTS’ NUTRITIONAL SOCIAL SUPPORT

Background: Social support is one of the important effective factors on health-related behaviors in different groups. The present study has evaluated the effect of an educational intervention on parents' nutritional social support for having a healthy diet by teenagers. Methods: This field trial was conducted in two groups on the parents of 63 female early adolescent.The level of parents' nutritional social support for having a healthy diet were measured using a questionnaire. One month after performing the educational intervention for parents, parents' nutritional social support for having a healthy diet were measured again. The level of significance was set at 0.05 for all the statistical tests. Results: The study results showed that after intervention means of the level of emotional [p=0.009],informational [p=0.03]and total social support [p=0.03] in the intervention group were significantly more than the control group.The mean of instrumental social support between the intervention and control groups showed no significant difference. Conclusions: Educational intervention on parents increases the nutritional level of parents' nutritional social support in the emotional, informational and total dimensions. Keywords: field trial, Social Support, Parents,Nutrition.