ABSTRACT

This study assessed the perception of pregnant women towards nutrition education approaches and messages delivered during antenatal clinics in hospitals and health centers in Aba south and Osisioma local government area of Abia State. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 297 pregnant women. Data on socio demographic characteristics and socio-economic status of the pregnant women, perception of the nutrition education approaches and messages and knowledge of basic nutrition education messages were collected using structured and validated questionnaire. The IBM SPSS statistics version 22.0 computer programme was used to analyze the data. Data obtained were described using frequency and percentage. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the relationship between the perception of the pregnant women towards the nutrition education approaches and messages delivered during antenatal clinics and their basic knowledge of these messages. Significant relationship was judged at p ≤ 0.05. This result showed that 33.0% of the respondents were between 26 -30 years, while majority (79.8%) of the respondent were married and as well more than half (51.5%) of them attended tertiary education. According to the health workers, less than half (44.1%) of the health workers uses the oral talk approaches in delivering of messages on dietary intake of pregnant women while a good number (45.1%) of them uses oral talk, in delivering of messages on breastfeeding feeding messages, the result further revealed that 46.8 % of the health workers uses oral talk in delivering messages on complementary feeding. Majority (94.6%) of the pregnant women received nutrition talks during antenatal clinics. The result showed that a good number of the pregnant women (46.5%) preferred oral talk to every other approaches. Based on the perception of pregnant women towards nutrition education approaches, 73.3% of the respondent had a positive response on the approaches used while 26.7% had a negative response. On the basis of Knowledge grade wise on dietary intake for pregnant women, 49.7% had average knowledge while (46.9%) had a good Knowledge grade wise on breastfeeding practice. The result also revealed that 35.6% of the pregnant women had a good knowledge on complementary feeding practices.  However, there was a significant correlation between knowledge score on dietary intake for pregnant women and perception towards approaches used. Therefore the study concludes that health professionals should focus on the importance of maternal nutrition counseling, consider it as one of the main antenatal clinic service packages, and update themselves timely from different sources.