Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Impact of an Educational Programme on Reproductive Health Among Young Migrant Female Workers in Shenzhen, China: an Intervention Study

  • Published:
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases (STD) account for a high proportion of health problems in the rural-to-urban young female migrant workers in China. Improving these conditions remains highly challenging.

Purpose

To developed an educational programme to advance the reproductive health of the female workers.

Method

An intervention study was conducted between July 2010 and April 2011 in Shenzhen. Two commune factories were selected to participate and provided a control cluster receiving routine local government health services and a second cluster receiving an educational intervention in addition to the routine services. The intervention included distribution and free access to educational study materials. The factory workers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in the area of reproductive health and STD were the main study outcomes.

Results

Compared with the control cluster, at the 6-month follow-up assessment, the intervention cluster had a significantly higher proportion of correct answers to queries about human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) (standardised coefficients of multiple linear regression (B) 0.047; P = 0.020) and awareness of places providing free contraceptives (odds ratio [OR] 2.011, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.635–2.472; P < 0.001), and a significantly lower proportion accepting premarital sex (OR 0.492, 95 % CI 0.416–0.582; P < 0.001), practising premarital sex (OR 0.539, 95 % CI 0.478–0.608; P < 0.001) or suffering from gynaecological disorders (OR 0.801, 95 % CI 0.697–0.921; P = 0.002).

Conclusion

A community-based educational intervention targeting unmarried female migrant workers appears to be effective in substantially improving their knowledge of reproductive health and their attitudes and behaviour towards health, and in reducing prevalence of STD.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. UNFPA. Improving reproductive health. 2013. http://www.unfpa.org/rh/. Accessed Dec. 22, 2013.

  2. Qian X, Tang SL, Garner P. Unintended pregnancy and induced abortion among unmarried women in China: a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2004. doi:10.1186/1472-6963-4-1.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Gong XD. STD epidemiology and control. Bull for STI Prev and Ctrl. 2011;25:9–13.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Wu SM. Status and trends of STI’s epidemic in China. Acta Med Sin. 2006;19(5):1039–41.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Zou XP. Investigation of reproductive health status and service needs among unmarried young men in Changshu. Zhonghua Nan Ke Xue. 2002;8(5):352–9.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Yin Q, Gong QP, Mao JS, Zong ZH, Yu LL, Xu P. The living conditions of floating women in Nanjing city. J Nanjing Colg Pop Pgm Mgmt. 2008;24(3):41–2.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Speizer IS, Magnani RJ, Colvin CE. The effectiveness of adolescent reproductive health interventions in developing countries: a review of the evidence. J Adolesc Health. 2003;33(5):324–48.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Hawks SR, Madanat HN, Merrill RM, Goudy MB, Miyagawa T. A cross-cultural comparison of health promoting behaviors among college students. IEJHE. 2002;5:84–92.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Madeni F, Horiuchi S, Iida M. Evaluation of a reproductive health awareness program for adolescence in urban Tanzania—a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test research. Reprod Health. 2011;8:21. doi:10.1186/1742-4755-8-21.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Al-Iryani B, Basaleem H, Al-Sakkaf K, Crutzen R, Kok G, van den Borne B. Evaluation of a school-based HIV prevention intervention among Yemeni adolescents. BMC Public Health. 2011;11:279. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-279.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Parwej S, Kumar R, Walia I, Aggarwal AK. Reproductive health education intervention trial. Indian J Pediatr. 2005;72(4):287–91.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. de Anda D. Replication of an intensive educational intervention for youth pregnancy and STI prevention: the GIG. Child Adolesc Soc Work J. 2008;25:55–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Sarah ML. Make or break? 2010: a pivotal year for scaling up RH/HIV integration and accelerating progress towards MDGS 5 and 6. 2010. http://www.aidsalliance.org/includes/document/RH_REPORT.pdf. Accessed 21 Jan 2014.

  14. Dickinson C, Attawell K, Drucea N. Progress on scaling up integrated services for sexual and reproductive health and HIV. Bull WHO. 2009;87:846–51.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Zhu CY, Wang JJ, Fu XH, Zhou ZH, Zhao J, Wang CX. Correlates of quality of life in China rural-to-urban female migrate workers. Qual Life Res. 2012;21(3):495–03.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Huedo-Medina TB, Boynton MH, Warren MR, Lacroix JM, Carey MP, Johnson BT. Efficacy of HIV prevention interventions in Latin American and Caribbean nations, 1995–2008: a meta-analysis. AIDS Behav. 2010;14:1237–51.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. O’Grady MA, Wilson K, Harman JJ. Preliminary findings from a brief, peer-led safer sex intervention for college students living in residence halls. J Prim Prev. 2009;30:716–31.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Gallant M, Maticka-Tydale E. School-base HIV prevention programmes for African youth. Soc Sci Med. 2004;58:1337–51.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Paul-Ebohimhen VA, Poobalan A, van Teijlingen ER. A systematic review of school-based sexual health interventions to prevent STI/HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. BMC Public Health. 2008;8:4. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-8-4. 10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Qian X, Smith H, Huang W, Zhang J, Huang Y, Garner P. Promoting contraceptive use among unmarried female migrants in one factory in Shanghai: a pilot workplace intervention. BMC Health Serv Res. 2007;7:17. doi:10.1186/1472-6963-7-77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Puffer S, Torgerson DJ, Watson J. Cluster randomized controlled trials. J Eval Clin Pract. 2005;11:479–83.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Hahn S, Puffer S, Torgerson DJ, Watson J. Methodological bias in cluster randomised trials. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2005;5:10. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-5-10.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Lewis SC, Warlow CP. How to spot bias and other potential problems in randomised controlled trials. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2004;75:181–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Dr. Feiyue Chai of Shajing General Hospital in Shenzhen City and Dr. Xianhua Fu of Guangzhou Medical University for their kind assistance.

Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510182, People’s Republic of China

    Chunyan Zhu

  2. Guangdong General Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Science, Guangzhou, 510080, People’s Republic of China

    Qingshan Geng

  3. Bureau of Health Care, Department of Health of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, 510060, People’s Republic of China

    Li Chen

  4. Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Centre, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510623, People’s Republic of China

    Hongling Yang

  5. Department of Internal Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Wei Jiang

Authors
  1. Chunyan Zhu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Qingshan Geng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Li Chen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hongling Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Wei Jiang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qingshan Geng.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Zhu, C., Geng, Q., Chen, L. et al. Impact of an Educational Programme on Reproductive Health Among Young Migrant Female Workers in Shenzhen, China: an Intervention Study. Int.J. Behav. Med. 21, 710–718 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-014-9401-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-014-9401-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation