OUTCOMES ON PSYCHOLOSOCIAL FACTORS AND NUTRITION-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE: EVALUATION OF A 10-WEEK NUTRITION EDUCATION INTERVENTION IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Objective: the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education intervention among university students in terms of social, psychological factors and nutrition-related quality of life (nqol) outcomes after receiving a 10-week nutrition education. longitudinal and randomised study design was adopted for the study. methods: a total of 417 respondents from four public universities in terengganu were randomly assigned to either intervention group (ig = 205) or control group (cg = 212). the ig received nutrition education through three tools; 1) conventional lecture, 2) brochures and 3) text messages via short messaging system (sms) while the cg not received any intervention. students completed the malay version of nqol (6 domains; 49 items; likert-type responses=1-5) and sf-36 (8 domains; 36 items) at pre-intervention and post-intervention. data analysis was carried out by using spss 16.0 utilising descriptive and parametric statistics. results: ninety-one percent of participants (ig = 178; cg = 202) completed the study (age = 19.1±1.1 years; female = 87.6%; malay = 98.2%). after controlling for possible confounders (eg. weight, waist, hip circumferences and pre-intervention scores for each domain), ig possessed relatively higher nqol score in food impact (p = 0.001), social / interpersonal (p = 0.008), physical functioning (p = 0.011) and overall nqol (p = 0.001). however, psychological factors did not show any significant difference for both groups. conclusion: although the intervention did not generate significant impact in the psychological component over a period of 10 weeks, significant positive impacts in social/interpersonal aspects and nqol were clearly shown