A study to assess the effectiveness of information, education, and communication package on management of mentally challenged children among mothers of the children in The Spastic Society of TamilNadu, Chennai.

Abstract

The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of information, education and communication package on management of mentally challenged children. Mentally challenged is a disability that occurs before the age of 18 years. It is considered by significant restrictions in intellectual working and adaptive behavior as stated in theoretical, social and practical adaptive skills. The mothers are the ones who provide the environment to mentally challenged children for better progress. While taking care of the mentally challenged children, the mother should know about the condition of the child to develop the skills of their children. The study adopted a pre experimental one group pre test post test design to assess the effectiveness of information, education, and communication package on management of mentally challenged children among mothers of the children in The Spastic Society of TamilNadu, Chennai. The sample size was 50 mothers of mentally challenged children aged 1 – 12 years. Convenient sampling technique was used. The tool has three parts. Part I consists of demographic variables of mother, part II consists of self administered questionnaire regarding management of mentally challenged children and part III consists of information, education and communication package on management of mentally challenged children. Analysis was done by using the descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that, there is a significant difference in the pre test and post test score of mothers after attending the information, education and communication programme. There was a increase in the mean value from 13.76 to 24.76 before and after giving an information, education and communication package. The calculated‘t’ test was 17.28, which was found to be highly significant at p>0.05 level, indicating an increase in the level of knowledge following teaching program. Analysis revealed that there was a significant association between education level of the mother, family income and level of knowledge.