A Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge and Attitude among Mothers of Infants Regarding Weaning Practices in Selected Rural Communities, Jalandhar

Abstract

A non-experimental, descriptive design was adopted; convenient sampling technique was used to select 100 subjects based on certain pre determined criteria. The data generated by using investigator developed structured interview schedule, content validity of investigator developed tool was obtained from experts of related departments. The mothers of infants knowledge and attitude was assessed by using investigator developed questionnaire and Likert scale. The reliability of the tool was determined by using Split half method and reliability was found to be = 0.96 for knowledge questionnaire and 0.997 for Likert scale. Pilot study was conducted on 6 mothers of infants with constructed tool with which it was found reliable respectively. The data analyzed from the study subjects was analyzed and interpreted in terms of the objectives and hypothesis of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis; the level of significance was at 5%. Assessment level of knowledge of mothers revealed the mean for overall knowledge of mothers of infants was 17.34 (S.D = 2.92). The highest mean knowledge was for weaning foods 8.37 (S.D = 1.59) and the lowest mean was for care during weaning 1.01 (S.D = 0.76). This decrease in the total knowledge indicates that the mothers of infants need more information on weaning practices. The assessment of attitude of mothers of infants revealed that the mean score of overall attitude was 62.33% (S.D = 6.21). The maximum level of mean score obtained in attitude regarding weaning foods was 29.63 (S.D = 4.78) and the minimum score obtained for attitude regarding care during weaning was 6.56 (S.D = 1.93). The correlation between the knowledge and attitude showed that there was a positive correlation between knowledge and attitude of mothers of infants with regard to weaning practices. Hence, the null hypothesis H01, which stated “there is no significant correlation between knowledge and attitude among mothers of infants on weaning practices”, was rejected. This shows that efforts can be undertaken by the community health nurse to educate the community regarding weaning practices. There was a statistically significant association found between level of knowledge and demographic variables such as age and source of information of mothers at p≤0.01 levels. Hence, the null hypothesis H02 which stated that “there is no significant association with selected demographic variables of mothers of infants” was rejected. There was no statistically significant association between level of attitude and the demographic variables such as religion, marital status, educational status, occupation, income of the family, type of family and number of children.