A randomized controlled Trial enhancing non-communicable diseases health literacy of Indian youth

Abstract

There is a theory-praxis gap related to health literacy interventions focused on non-communicable diseases (NCD) among young people. We designed a NCD curriculum and investigated its effect on health literacy in non-medical, non-nursing college students in India. We deliberately selected non-medical and non-nursing college students as we hypothesized they would have minimal baseline knowledge of NCDs. We initially carried out a pilot study in 85 students in a four-day long workshop (12 teaching hours) using empirically developed health literacy instrument. We administered the curriculum to 120 randomly selected students in 4 colleges, while 50 students were controls. The curriculum was given over 4 days for a total of 32 hours. Each lecture comprised of didactic lecture followed by discussion and skills testing of measuring BP and blood sugar. Health literacy was measured using a specifically designed tool at baseline and endline. Difference in health literacy scores between the two time-points was analyzed using the t-test. Multiple linear and Poisson regression models were used for covariates.