Impact of Educational Weaning Knowledge and Practices of Parents and Guardians of Children under Two Years Old at the David Rose Health Centre

Objectives: To assess the knowledge of weaning, of parents and guardians, of children under two-years-old, attending David Rose Health Centre.

To assess whether there is an association between selected demographic variables, and the weaning knowledge.

To educate the parents and guardians on the World Health Organisation recommended weaning practices.

To assess the change in knowledge of weaning after the delivery of an educational intervention.

Design and Methods: A prospective longitudinal study with repeated measures design obtained 120 participants using a convenient, non-probability sampling method. Data was collected using a pre-intervention and post-intervention questionnaire. The data was processed using the SPSS Version 24 Software Program and analysed with a scoring system developed by the researchers using the PAHO/WHO “Guiding Principles for Complementary Feeding of the Breastfed Child”.

Results: Both educational interventions increased the participants knowledge from good to almost 100%.

Conclusions: Most parents and guardians had good baseline knowledge. However, there were certain aspects where they lacked or had inaccurate knowledge. Overall, their knowledge improved regardless of the type of educational intervention they were exposed to.

Recommendations: Future studies should be held in classroom settings, with more time allowed to assess change of knowledge.