A STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INFORMATION EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION (IEC) ON KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS AMONG ADOLESCENT GIRLS IN SELECTED HIGH SCHOOLS OF KOLAR TALUK.

Background: The growth and prosperity of a nation depend heavily on the nutritional status and development of adolescent girls as they not only constitute one tenth of population but also influence the growth of remaining population. Diets of Indian adolescent girls especially in rural areas are inadequate in terms of quality and quantity. Material and Methods: for the present study true experimental design was adopted, by using simple random sampling technique, 60 (30 Control and 30 Experimental) adolescent girls were selected from selected High Schools of Kolar taluk. The data was collected by structured knowledge questionnaire and 24 hours recall. The pretest was conducted on the 1st day for control and experimental group subjects. Information Education and Communication (IEC) was administered lasting for 45 minutes for Experimental group. Post-test was conducted 15 days after the intervention for both the groups. Results: The findings of the study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between posttest knowledge scores of control (9.5? 2.6) and Experimental group subjects (21.9? 2.36). Hence the null hypothesis was rejected. It shows that Information Education and Communication (IEC) were effective to increase the knowledge and practice score among Adolescent girls nutritional status. It also shows that there was significant association of posttest knowledge scores with selected socio-demographic variables. Conclusion: Health maintenance is the self- responsibility of each individual. The present study encourages the adolescent girls to impart health education using various methods to improve their nutritional status and to become healthy.