investigating the relationship between the awareness of the mothers referring to health and treatment centers in khoy and their function about the nourishment of the children under 3 years old

investigating the relationship between the awareness of the mothers referring to health and treatment centers in khoy and their function about the nourishment of the children under 3 years old f safar alizadeh , msc h parto azam , msc r sodefi , msc received: 22 april, 2009 accepted: 11 july, 2009 abstract: background & aims: the crisis of malnutrition in early childhood is high and according to the statistics of 2008 covers fifty percent of child mortality under five years old. malnutrition average in iran is less than 5%. the present study is to evaluate the awareness of mothers referring to health centers of khoy and their performance on nutritional status of children less than three years old. materials & methods: in this descriptive-correlational study, seventy mothers with children under three years old were included. data collection tool was a questioner for analyzing the data descriptive and inferred statistics were used. results: based on research findings, 50% of mothers had moderate awareness, and 81.4% had breastfed their children. in connection with the performance of mothers with their children's nutritional status, 57.2 % had a moderate performance. there are meaningful statistical relations between the variables of awareness and the function in research items. (p=0.01) conclusion: the findings of this survey are worthy of attention for nurses because of their educational role as they increase mothers’ awareness. keywords: awareness, function, mothers, nourishment status in children address: islamic azad university of khoy, khoy, west azarbaijan, iran tel: 09143637093 email: [email protected]