AWARENESS OF PREGNANT WOMEN ON GOOD NUTRITION A STUDY OF PANKSHIN

The effect of nutrition education programme on food related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices of literate women in Pankshin community was investigated using quasi-experimental design. The non-randomized control group, pretest-posttest quasiexperimental design was employed for the study. The population for the study comprised 1,807 literate women in Pankshin community. One hundred and sixty-six literate women in Pankshin community constituted the sample for the study. The instruments for data collection were a self-developed 72 item nutritional knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices questionnaire (NKABPQ) and a 24 content 12 weeks unit plan, validated by five experts. A pilot study was conducted for three weeks to determine the effectiveness of the developed NEP. Thereafter, the 12 week unit plan was taught for 12 weeks during which 97 women in the experimental group were taught the content of NEP during the main study, while 74 women in the control group were taught the content of personal health. The procedure for assigning the women in the sub-communities to experimental and control groups was by balloting without replacement. The hypotheses stated for the study were tested at .05 level of significance. The data collected were analysed using means and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistics. The findings of the study showed that there was significant difference between the mean scores of women exposed to NEP and those not exposed to NEP in nutritional knowledge; nutritional attitudes; nutritional beliefs and nutritional practices. It was further revealed that age had no significant influence on the nutritional knowledge; nutritional attitudes; nutritional beliefs and the nutritional practices of the women. Furthermore, the results showed that level of education had significant influence on the nutritional knowledge and the nutritional practices of the women; but had no significant influence on the nutritional attitudes and the nutritional beliefs of the women.