Comparison of two methods of education (lecture and self learning) on knowledge and practice of mothers with under 3 year old children about growth monitoring and nutritional development stages

Introduction: Assessment of national children growth has shown children‘s growth failure in a large percentage of them in Iran. Growth failure is easily diagnosed by growth monitoring card .On the other hand, mothers’ Knowledge of Nutritional development stages can help them to modify their practice in this field .In this case, conducting educational and interventional programs play a key role in promotion of mothers’ knowledge and practice. This study has been designed and conducted to compare the effect of two educational methods of lecture and self learning on mothers’ knowledge and practice. Methods:This is a quasi-experimental study conducted on 100 mothers with under 3 year old children .Samples were selected through random sampling and were randomly divided into two groups of lecture and self learning. Educational content included growth monitoring card, nutrition and nutritional development stages. A 45 item questionnaire whose validity and reliability had been confirmed in previous studies was used to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software. Results:There was a significant difference between mothers’ Knowledge about growth and nutritional development stages before and three months after intervention. Although, There was no significant difference between mean scores of mothers’ knowledge about children’s growth in two studied methods, there was a significant difference in nutritional development stages (p<0.001).There was a significant difference in mothers’ practice mean scores before and three months after educational intervention (P<0.001). Conclusion: Mothers ‘Knowledge and practice about children growth and nutritional development stages are not appropriate so that education by each method is effective .Promotion of mothers’ knowledge and practice about nutritional development stages and their trend is necessary and must be programmed.