The Role of Behavioral Insight-Based Education on Improving Knowledge and Husband's Attitude as a Compliance Partner of Pregnant Women Consuming Fe Tablets."

Abstract

Iron deficiency anemia in pregnancy is one of the most significant public health problems in Indonesia, even though the Fe tablet supplementation program has been running for many years. The low adherence of pregnant women taking Fe tablets is often related to the lack of participation from the husband. This study aims to analyze the influence of Behavioral Insights-based education (BI) on increasing husbands' knowledge and attitudes as adherence partners in supporting pregnant women's compliance with Fe tablets. The research design used a pre-post quasi-experiment with a control group, involving 100 respondents (50 in the intervention group, 50 in the control group) at the Bukittinggi City Health Center. The intervention group received BI-based education through four components — simplification, visual cues, a commitment device, and a social norm message — while the control group received standard education. The analysis was performed using the Wilcoxon test for pre-post differences and the Mann–Whitney test for inter-group differences. Results showed significant improvements in knowledge (p<0.001) and the husband's attitude (p<0.001) in the intervention group compared to the controls. These findings confirm that the BI approach is effective in increasing husbands' cognitive and affective readiness as partners in preventing anemia in pregnant women. Behavior-based interventions with partner involvement need to be integrated into national Antenatal Care (ANC) programs.

Keywords: husband’s, knowledge, attitude, anemia, pregnancy