The Influence of Peer Education on the Coverage of Clean and Healthy Living Behavior in Kutacane 3 Public Middle School Students

Low awareness of students about PHBS allows for a lack of knowledge obtained by students due to the lack of information obtained. Therefore, health education is important to be encouraged. One strategy that can be used in providing health education to students is peer education. To determine and analyze the effect of peer education on the scope of Clean and Healthy Living Behavior in students. The type of research used in this study is quasi-experimental, with a pretest-posttest control group design. Data analysis using variate and bivariate tests. The subjects of this study were students of Class VII-A and Class VII-B of SMP Negeri 3 Kutacane in the 2024/2025 Academic Year. The research instrument used was a test sheet. The results of the Mann-Whitney test showed a significant increase in students' understanding of each indicator including PHBS, except for the indicator of not smoking, although there was an increase but it was not statistically significant. This can be seen based on the average value of the experimental class at the time of the posttest which was greater when compared to the pretest, with a value of p = <0.05, while for the non-smoking indicator the value of p => 0.05. These results indicate the influence of health education with the peer education method on the understanding of the scope of PHBS in experimental class students. Peer Education is able to improve students' understanding of the scope of PHBS better, compared to students who do not receive peer education intervention.