TY - JOUR AU - Helen Gebretatyos, AU - Lidia Ghirmai, AU - Soliana Amanuel, AU - Eyasu H. Tesfamariam, PY - 2020/09/07 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Effect of educational intervention on the knowledge and appropriate counselling skills of health professionals post training regarding nutrition during pregnancy in Asmara, Eritrea JF - International Journal of Allied Medical Sciences and Clinical Research JA - ijamscr VL - 8 IS - 3 SE - Articles DO - 10.61096/ijamscr.v8.iss3.2020.576-586 UR - https://ijamscr.com/ijamscr/article/view/897 SP - 576-586 AB - <p>Background</p><p>Reinforcing desirable attitudes and behavior related to nutrition among pregnant women can only be achieved when they are provided with timely and comprehensive nutrition education and counseling. The knowledge and counseling skills of health professionals has an immense and recognized role in introducing positive dietary behavior and practice related to<br>pregnancy among pregnant women.</p><p>Objective</p><p>To assess the effect of training given to health professionals regarding nutrition during pregnancy on their knowledge and counseling skills.</p><p>Methods</p><p>A single group pre-post quasi-experimental study design with pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention was employed in July of 2018 in five health facilities providing antenatal care service on 16 health care professionals in Asmara. A manual based training was given by a qualified trainer based on a prepared module and leaflet on important messages on appropriate<br>nutrition during pregnancy for 2 days. A pre-designed pretested questionnaire was used to collect data via interview by trained data collectors for both the pretest and immediate posttest. Data was analyzed using SPSS Version 22.0 program. Statistical significance level was set at p-value of less than 0.05.</p><p>Result</p><p>The analysis showed that the median scores of knowledge increased significantly from 30.5/47 (IQR=8) at pre-intervention to 44/47 (IQR=3.5) at immediate post intervention. On the average, the level of knowledge increased significantly by 13.5 units out of 47 (p&lt;0.001). Major gap in knowledge of health professionals was seen in the complication of maternalunder nutrition such as preeclampsia (6.3%) and gestational weight gain (6.3%). The mean nutrition counseling practice score of health professionals was 30.97 (SD=1.26)/34. Sources of main food groups (fats, iron) was discussed by all participants. More than eighty percent (93.8%) checked for adherence to iron supplement and none of the respondents failed to give information on how to take the supplement and three quarter of the respondents gave information on use of iodized salt. There was no significant difference in the mean score of counseling skills of health professional’s between the categories of demographic characteristics.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>This research has made it clear that it is possible to improve the knowledge and practices of health professionals through the proposed intervention aimed at primary health care teams providing antenatal care.</p> ER -