Az iskolai kortárs egészségnevelôi tevékenység lehetséges szerepe az orvosképzésben

INTRODUCTION – Lack of skills, commitment, and physicians’ poor health behavior may hinder lifestyle counseling in medical practice, but these barriers can be mitigated by training. We aimed to explore how school-based peer health education during training may improve medical education. We examined among educators of the Balassagyarmat Health Education Program (BEP) what kind of experiences they gained useful for lifestyle counseling, how committed they became to health education, and whether their health behavior changed. METHODS – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with medical student near-peer educators of BEP (n = 9) who had mastered all topics of the program. Our data were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Our deductive codes were defined by the research questions, and responses to these were inductively coded and aggregated along the questions. RESULTS – Among the skills useful for lifestyle counseling, the participants experienced improvement in patient education, motivation, and partnership-building. They became more committed and after the program voluntarily and successfully carried out health education in their communities and among patients. They reported more conscious nutrition, alcohol consumption, and increased physical activity as changes in their own behavior. CONCLUSIONS – The school-based health education program helped medical student near-peer educators improve medical communication skills and commitment to health education, and spurred positive health behavior change; thus, we recommend considering its integration into medical education.