A study to evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding temporary methods of family planning among postnatal mothers attending in Government Hospital at Guntakal, Ananthapur district

Family planning has far-reaching benefits for women and their families. A study reported that birth interval was indirectly proportional to infant and child mortality rates. Over 1,50,000 maternal deaths take place every year in India. This accounts for about 25% of the maternal deaths in the world. Most of these deaths are preventable by providing proper antenatal, intra natal and postnatal care services to pregnant women and mothers.

(1) To assess the existing level of knowledge regarding Importance of Temporary methods of Family planning among postnatal mothers.(2) To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding Importance of Temporary methods of family planning among postnatal mothers.(3) To find out the association between the posttest level of knowledge regarding importance of temporary methods of family planning of postnatal mothers with their selected demographic variables.

A quantitative research approach, pre-experimental, one group pre and posttest design was used for this study. Data was collected from 50 postnatal mothers of selected hospital. Purposive sampling was used for selecting the samples. The investigator developed structured teaching programme with regard to the family planning methods. Structured knowledge questionnaire was used for data collection.

In posttest 92% study participants had adequate knowledge, and 8% had moderately adequate knowledge. The overall analysis of knowledge that the pretest mean is 18.88 and that of posttest is 21.30. The calculated ‘t’ value is 38.13, which is higher than the table ‘t’ value 4.21at 98 df with 0.05 level of significance. There was extremely significant difference between pretest and posttest levels of knowledge among postnatal mothers regarding family planning methods.

The study concludes that mothers had adequate knowledge after structured teaching programme on family planning methods. It also suggests importance of conducting health programmes to improve the awareness about the temporary family planning methods and practice. The nurses are playing a vital role to educate the postnatal mothers.