|
African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development
Rural Outreach Program
ISSN: 1684-5358 EISSN: 1684-5358
Vol. 17, No. 3, 2017, pp. 12377-12394
|
Bioline Code: nd17068
Full paper language: English
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge
|
|
African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, Vol. 17, No. 3, 2017, pp. 12377-12394
en |
NUTRITION EDUCATION PROMOTED CONSUMPTION OF PULSE BASED FOODS AMONG RURAL WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE IN SIDAMA ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA
Yetnayet, M.; Henry, C.J.; Berhanu, G.; Whiting, S.J. & Regassa, N.
Abstract
Nutrition education about locally available, nutritionally rich crops, such as pulses, is
one of the promising strategies to reduce the burden of malnutrition among women in
rural communities of low-income and middle income countries such as Ethiopia. This
study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of nutrition education on the
knowledge, attitude and practice of women of reproductive age using the Health Belief
Model. A pre-test post-test controlled intervention study was conducted on 200
randomly selected women from Hawassa Zuria district in two groups: intervention
(n=100) and control (n=100). Nutrition education intervention was given using Health
Belief Model (HBM) only to the intervention group, every 15 days for consecutive six
months whereas the control group got the same information in a summarized form at
the end of the study. Women in both groups completed knowledge, attitude and
practice (KAP) and food frequency questionnaires at baseline and after six months of
intervention. Data were analyzed using independent and paired sample t-tests to find
out the effect of nutrition education intervention by comparing the pre and post test data
between the two groups and within each group. The result showed a significant
improvement in the mean knowledge (p<0.001), attitude (p<0.001), and practice scores
(p<0.001) in the intervention group compared to control group. There was significant
(p<.001) improvement in the scores of HBM constructs: perceived susceptibility,
perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, and taking
health action by the intervention group to the control group. The success of this
intervention using nutrition education to improve practices using pulses may be due to
there being repeated demonstrations of pulse processing and recipes, to group
discussions involving peer learning and experience sharing, and to interest from the
mothers regarding health benefits. It is concluded that nutrition education based on
HBM can be effective in bringing positive change on the KAP of women of
reproductive age towards household utilization of pulse based diets.
Keywords
pulses; education; Health Belief Model; Ethiopia; legumes; women; diet; nutrition
|
|
© Copyright 2017 - African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development Alternative site location: http://www.ajfand.net/
|
|