Community based health promotion intervention to improve Nutritional status of children less than five years in rural community in Sri Lanaka

Abstract

Introduction The level of child nutrition plays a crucial role in growth& development which construct lifetime effect. This study was intended to improve nutritional status of children through community based health promotion intervention. Methodology Quasi experiment design and a stratified cluster sampling method was used to select intervention and control groups for the study. (30 families) Objectives of this study were 1)To design and implement an intervention to address selected determinant factors of nutritious food intake of children,2) Assess the effectiveness of the intervention in relation to change in variety of food intake, frequency of food intake, parental involvement, appetite peer pressure and media influence of feeding. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect information. Weight of the children were measured using a measuring scale. Mothers were empowered to identify essential areas to improve nutritious food intake and design activities accordingly. Diffusion innovation Theory and Health belief Model were utilized in designing of the intervention. ―Nutritional Butterfly‖ was design to overcome underling factors identified by mothers. Communities were continued with collective and individual level activities while addressing obstacles.Progress of two groups were obtained by Interviewer administered questionnaire, Focus group discussion, daily records of the mothers and by measuring weight of children. Result /Conclusion Nutritional Food intake level was changed by 87%in intervention group, 7% by control group. Statistically significant differences between pre & post results in intervention group (t=12.07, p 0) was noted, while the pre & post results in control group (t=1.75, p=0.09) was not significant at the 95% CI. Average age of the study subjects were 3 years in both groups. Mean weight gain was 340 g. Therefore the health promotion intervention which mainly targeted children less than five years is found to be effective to improve the nutritional food intake and weight of children in rural communities.