Epidemiological study of prevalence of pediculosis and its related factors using the health belief model in elementary school students in Khorramshahr city of Iran

this study aimed to determine the prevalence of pediculosis and its related factors in elementary
students in the city of Khorramshahr. A cross-sectional, descriptive-analytic that carried out on 170 female
students in Khorramshahr city on March and April of 2015. 22 subjects (12.9%) got infestation of head lice
in the past three months and 148 (87.1%) could not experienced infestation of louse. the mean score of
awareness between the studied sample was 48.41 ± 3.12 with maximum value 36 and minimum value 4.
regression analysis was used to predict behaviours. results showed that only the awareness variable was
behaviour predictive (p = 0.014). There was no signifcant relationship between predictive behaviours and
demographic variables. the results of this study showed that the knowledge is the only predictive variable of
behaviour that has signifcantly relationship with preventive behaviour of pediculosis. As a result, elementary
school students can be protected by increasing awareness of preventive behaviours and the prevalence of
pediculosis can be reduced.