Effect of Educational Video on Maternal Nutrition, Hygiene and Sanitation Among Maternal Age Group Women: A Prospective Interventional Study from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India

Introduction: Interventions that try to alter behaviour in order to promote health and disease management are typically time and resource-consuming. At the moment, boosting maternal and child nutrition is the main focus of nutrition programs in India. This paper discusses the most effective methods to change eating habits, hygiene, and sanitisation particularly the significance of contemporary Information Technology (IT) in health education.

Aim: To determine the pre education knowledge level and create awareness regarding maternal nutrition, hygiene and sanitation through the developed education video on personal hygiene and sanitation among maternal-aged group women.

Materials and Methods: The community-based prospective interventional study was conducted from October 2019 to April 2021 by using the prospective intervention study design. Based on the Socio-demographic profile, anthropometric measurement, and clinical assessment, specific questions regarding dietary knowledge and personal hygiene were recorded by using the questionnaire. By using the recorded data through a questionnaire, 100 respondents were selected through stratified random sampling and divided into the control group (n=50) and experimental group (n=50) involved in the intervention study. The experimental group which consisted of 50 respondents was grouped into two groups E1 (n=25) and E2 (n=25) and educated separately (due to COVID-19 restriction on mass gatherings) three times a month at 15 days intervals. The nutrition education intervention was given through an educational video in the Hindi language. The effects of the intervention were studied among the participants of the experimental group. The control group did not receive any nutritional awareness sessions. Knowledge level before and after the education intervention was recorded by using the self-structured questionnaire consisting of 15 multiple questions. The data was analysed by using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique.

Results: Analysis was done for the complete data collected from 100 participants (15-35 years of age, 50 in each control and experimental group) included in the present study. The mean age of maternal age group women was 22 years. No significant difference was found between the knowledge of the control and experimental group at baseline (p-value >0.05). However, the post-intervention, there was significant gain in knowledge in the experimental group (p-value <0.001).

Conclusion: It was found that providing the nutrition education through the developed information and communication technology proved effective by increasing knowledge level among the maternal aged group women.