Volume :
5
Issue :
1
Abstract :
Background Malnutrition is one of the significant factors contributing to Infant and child mortality in developing countries of the world. Nutrition during the first five years has an impact not only on growth and morbidity during childhood, but also acts as a determinant of nutritional status in adolescent and adult life. Aims and objectives The study aimed at assessing the nutritional status, pre test and post test knowledge, attitude and practice scores regarding the prevention of malnutrition among mothers of preschool children. To fine out the effectiveness of planned teaching programme regarding the prevention of malnutrition, to find the correlation between knowledge, attitude, and practice scores and to determine the association between knowledge, attitude and practice scores with selected demographic variables. Materials and methods Nutritional status of preschool children was assessed by taking height and weight, knowledge of mothers was assessed by structured knowledge questionnaires, practice and attitude of mothers of pre school children was assessed by rating scale and likert scale respectively. Results The study results shows that 72.5 % of children are having normal nutritional status, 7.5% are having grade II malnutrition. There is a significant correlation between knowledge and practice scores (r =0.4066), there is a mild correlation between knowledge and attitude score (r =0.15), there is a is a mild correlation between practice and attitude scores (r =0.01). there is a significant difference between pre test and post test knowledge scores (t=7.75, df=t39), there is a significant difference between pre test and post test attitude scores (t=29.85, df=t39), there is a significant difference between pre test and post test practice scores (t=5.48, df=t39), there is no significant association between knowledge, attitude and practice scores with selected demographic variables.