The Effects of a Mutrition Education on the Nutritional Knowledge and Attitude of Health Care Workers

Objectives and methods: This was an intervention field trial to determine the effects of a nutrition education program (a modudle prepared specifically for the porpose) on the nutritional knowledge and attitude of volunteer Health care workers of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) in city of Tehran in 1999. The study population consisted of 121 female health care workers from four randomly selected health care centers. A preliminary questionnaire to obtain personal and demographic information, as well as nutrition knowledge and attitude was developed and pretested in the field. All health care workers from two out of the four health care centers entered the study as the intervention group (65), while health care workers of the other two centers entered the study as the control group ( 56). Results: The mean age of the health care workers was 30.6±8.4years, 31 of them (74.4) were married and 110 (90.9%) housewives. The mean knowledge score before the intervention was 67.4± 10.8 (out of 104), while the mean attitude was 37.4±5.5 out of 52. There was no statistically significant difference in the knowledge and attitude scores among the four centers. After the education program, the score of nutrition knowledge of the intervention group increased significantly, from 67' ± 12. 7 to 92/1 ±5.5 (P<0.001), while no significant change in the knowlege of the Control Group was observed (from 68±7.3 to 69±9.2). The difference in the knowledge pre-test and post-test between the intervention group (25.12± 12.58) and the control group ( 1. 5 ± 9. 2) was statistically significant (P<0.001). The attitude score of the Intervention group increased significantly after the education program, from 37.4±5.8 to 43.9±2.6 (P<0.001), while no significant change in the attitude of the control group was observed (from 37.4±5.8 to 36.1 ±4.6). The difference in the attitude pre-test and post-test between the intervention group (6.5±6.5) and the control group (-1. 3 ± 5. 5) was statistically significant (P < 0.001). Conclusion: It is concluded that a nutrition education program using a well-prepared module can increase the nutrition knowledge and improve the nutrition attitude of volunteer health care workers.