Mothers’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practice
Regarding Diarrhea and its Management in Morang Nepal:
An Interventional Study
Mukhtar Ansari1*, Mohamed Izham Mohamed
Ibrahim2 and P Ravi Shankar3
1Discipline of Social & Administrative Pharmacy,
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains
Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia, 2Clinical
Pharmacy & Practice, College of Pharmacy, Qatar
University, Doha, Qatar, 3Department of
Pharmacology, KIST Medical College, Lalitpur, Nepal
*For correspondence:
Email:
mukhtar1998@yahoo.com
Received: 31 January
2012 Revised
accepted: 21 July
Tropical
Journal of Pharmaceutical Research, October 2012;
11(5): 847-854
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/tjpr.v11i5.19
Abstract
Purpose: To assess diarrhea-related knowledge, attitude
and practice through successive educational
interventions.
Methods: This was an interventional study conducted at nine
different locations of Morang district, Nepal from March
2010 to January 2011. Multistage random sampling
approach was adopted to sample 630 subjects and they
were randomly assigned to test and control groups. The
subjects in the test group were provided an educational
intervention designed on the basis of World Health
Organization guidelines. Data collection followed by
intervention was conducted at baseline, 1 month and 3
months; at 6 months, only data were taken without
intervention.
Results: About 90 % of the mothers were from the age group
16-30 years and most (93 %) of them were agricultural
laborers. A majority (> 62%) of the mothers were not
educated. Educational interventions brought about
significant improvement in knowledge, attitude and
practice at 1st, 2nd and 3rd follow-up. The median
scores of knowledge, attitude and practice increased
from 14, 7, 6 to 26, 9, 13, respectively, due to
repeated interventions. Furthermore, interventions
strengthened the correlation between knowledge, attitude
and practice.
Conclusion: Intervention was beneficial in improving mothers’
knowledge, attitude and practice regarding diarrhea and
its management.
Keywords: Attitude, Diarrhea, Intervention,
Knowledge, Mothers, Practice.
