The Effect of Nutrition Education Towards Knowledge of Mothers with Children Under-five Years in Lempeni Village, Indonesia

Abstract

Stunting is a major health problem that has been identified as one of the risk factors for poor physical and mental development among children under-five years. Lempeni is one of the villages in East Java, Indonesia with a stunting prevalence of 35%. One of the ways to overcome stunting is by conducting nutrition education. Considering the importance of nutrition education, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of nutrition education on the nutritional knowledge of mothers with children under-five years in Lempeni Village, Indonesia. This was a quasi-experiment with no control group. The study was undertaken among 8 mothers selected purposively. Nutrition education was carried out by giving a lecture using power points and combined with a demonstration on how to detect stunting and make complementary foods. Nutrition knowledge scores before and after the intervention were analyzed using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. The mean of the mothers' knowledge score before intervention (pretest) was 18.5±1.512 while the mothers' knowledge score after intervention (posttest) was 19.63±1.506. The nutrition knowledge scores were significantly higher in the posttest than the pretest after receiving nutrition education (p<0.05). According to the results, nutrition education had a positive impact on the nutrition knowledge of mothers with children under five years old. It can be concluded that nutrition education was effective in increasing the mothers' knowledge