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The impacts of peer education based on adolescent health education on the quality of life in adolescents: a randomized controlled trial

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Abstract

Purpose

During adolescence, adolescents are more susceptible to internalizing and externalizing problems influencing quality of life (QoL). The purpose of the study is to verify the effectiveness of a peer education on improving QoL of adolescents.

Methods

A cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted involving 1564 subjects who were divided into an intervention group (n = 714) and a control group (n = 850). The intervention group received 1-year peer education. Their QoL and basic information were assessed using a Adolescent Quality of Life Scale and a self-designed basic situation questionnaire.

Results

After the intervention, significant increases were found in the psychological, and social, pubertal dimensions, and in total QoL (P < 0.05) in the intervention group relative to the control group. Significant decrease was found in physical dimension (P < 0.05), but the change in the intervention group (0.74 decrease) was much less than that in the control group (1.94 decrease). The improvements of physical (B = 1.215, SE = 0.305, P < 0.001), psychological (B = 1.496, SE = 0.598, P = 0.013), pubertal (B = 0.828, SE = 0.244, P = 0.001), and total (B = 3.455, SE = 1.429, P = 0.016) QoL in the intervention group were higher than in the control group in mixed model.

Conclusions

The peer education based on adolescent health education is effective in improving the physical, psychological, pubertal, and total QoL of adolescents, but no social QoL.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the primary and secondary school health centers in the Qijiang District and teachers and leaders of selected schools for their support of data collection. We acknowledge the investigators and voluntary participants who took the time to complete the baseline survey, follow-up survey, and peer education training for this study. Their voluntary participation made this investigation possible.

Funding

This study was supported by the Social Sciences Research Planning Fund Project from Ministry of Education Humanities (17YJA840015).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Health and Management, Research Center for Medicine and Social Development, Collaborative Innovation Center of Social Risks Governance in Health, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China

    Hua Diao, Yang Pu, Lianjian Yang, Ting Li, Feng Jin & Hong Wang

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  1. Hua Diao
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  2. Yang Pu
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  3. Lianjian Yang
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  4. Ting Li
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  5. Feng Jin
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  6. Hong Wang
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Contributions

Conceptualization—HW, and HD; Methodology—HW, HD, LY, and TL; Formal analysis—HW, HD, YP, and FJ; Writing—Original Draft Preparation, HW, HD, and YP; Writing—Review and Editing, HW, and HD; Funding Acquisition, HW.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hong Wang.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the study was performed. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Chongqing Medical University.

Informed consent

Participants and their parents were informed of the study aims and methods, and written informed consent was obtained prior to the investigation.

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Diao, H., Pu, Y., Yang, L. et al. The impacts of peer education based on adolescent health education on the quality of life in adolescents: a randomized controlled trial. Qual Life Res 29, 153–161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02309-3

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