Effect of Structured Teaching Programme on Prevention of Protein Energy Malnutrition Among Under Five Children

Abstract

Introduction: Protein Energy Malnutrition affects millions of under five children in developing countries.Objectives:1.Evaluate the effect of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding prevention of Protein Energy Malnutrition among mothers of under five children.2.Evaluate the effect of structured teaching programmeon grades of malnutrition among under five children.3.Correlate the grades of malnutrition with the knowledge score of their mothers. A true experimental pretest posttest control group design was adopted.400 moderately and severely malnourished under five children were included. Structured questionnaire was used to assess the level of knowledge of mothers. Anthropometric measurements such as weight and height were measured and compared withWHO Z scoreclassificationsystem.StructuredTeachingProgrammeonprevention of Protein Energy Malnutrition was organized. Knowledge of mothers were evaluated after a week and after third month. Also,anthropometric measurements were measured after first and third month for all the study subjects in the experiment group. Findings: After 3 months of intervention, in experiment group, mothers gained 28.71% knowledge score than pretest score whereas in control group, gain score was only 1.29%.In experiment group,22.22% of under five children attained normal weight for age,19.63% attained normal height for age and 13.19% had normal weight for height. There was a moderatepositivecorrelationbetweenknowledgescoreandweightforagescore(r=0.45), height for age score (r=0.45) and weight for height score(r=0.48).There was a significant association between knowledge score of mothers and selected demographic variables and also between grades of malnutrition of under five children and selected demographic variables. Conclusion: Study findings reflect that creating awareness among mothers of under five children is an effective public health strategy to combat malnutrition in the country.