A Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Self-Instructional Module on Knowledge and Practices Regarding Complementary Feeding of Infants From 6 Months to 12 Months among Mothers of Selected Rural Areas of Gulbarga

Abstract

A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of self-instructional module(SIM) on knowledge and practices
regarding complementary feeding of infants from 6 months to 12 months among mothers of selected rural areas.
An infant is the term used to refer to the very young offspring of human beings. The term ‘infant’ derives from
the Latin word ‘infants’ meaning ‘unable to speak’. Typically this is applied to children between the age group of
1 month and 12 months. Complementary Feeding is the process of gradually introducing supplementary foods
along with the breast milk to what will be its adult diet .Complementary Feeding is not sudden withdrawal of
child from the breast feed but is a gradual process starting at the age of 6 months as mother’s milk alone is not
sufficient to sustain growth beyond 6 months. The purpose of Complementary Feeding is not only to introduce
the baby to regular food, but also help the infant to develop a wide range of tastes. A descriptive statistics was
carried out in order to present the findings related to evaluate the effectiveness of self-instructional module on
knowledge and practices regarding complementary feeding of infants among mothers of selected rural areas
of Gulbarga.
Objectives: To assess the pretest and posttest knowledge of mothers of infants regarding complementary
feeding. To assess the pretest and posttest practice of mothers of infants regarding complementary feeding. To
determine the effectiveness of self-instructional module regarding complementary feeding among mothers of
infants. To identify the correlation between knowledge and practice regarding complementary feeding among
mothers of infants and To identify the significant association between pre test knowledge and practice scores
with selected demographic variables.
Conclusion: The Mean and SD of knowledge of mothers was 17.71 and 2.54. The Mean and SD of practice of
mothers was 19.71 and 3.44. The correlation co-efficient value of knowledge and practice of mothers was + 0.92,
that shows that there was positive correlation exists between knowledge and practice of mothers regarding
complementary feeding. The study was conducted regarding the complementary feeding among mothers with
selected socio-demographic variables, chi-square test was vise& there was no significant association was found between practice scores of mothers with any of selected socio-demographic variables at 0.05 level of significance hence null hypothesis was rejected.