Comparing the Effectiveness of Attendance and Non Attendance Education of Health Workers on Knowledge of Mothers and Anthropometric Changes of Infants

Many adulthood diseases originate from childhood nutrition and the most of human food patterns and habits are formed in childhood. To improve nutritional pattern and promote mother's health, implementing strategies e.g. health education are on the top of nutrition health priority. The aim of this study was comparing the effectiveness of different teaching methods of health workers on knowledge of mothers about infant’s nutrition and changes in their anthropometric pattern. This quasi-experimental study evaluated effectiveness of attendance and non attendance training methods. The study population included mothers’ of breast-fed children less than 6 years of age. In this study, 303 subjects were selected using random sampling method from 16 urban health centers. Data were collected by a standard questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive and analytical statistics using SPSS software. Average age of subjects was 26.9±5.8 years, about 10% of mothers were employed and 75% of mothers exclusively breast-feed their infants. Statistically significant differences were observed in nutritional knowledge of mothers on children’s diet before and after training (p<0.05). However, there has been no significant difference on subjects’ knowledge between different training methods. Both height and weight of before training significantly differ from those of after training (p<0.05). Although both methods improved mothers’ knowledge and infants’ anthropometrical indices, however, attendance education of staffs was more effective than non attendance method. Therefore, we recommend both attendance and non attendance methods to improve knowledge and enhance health promoting behaviors.