Effectiveness of Group-Based Counseling on Health Status and Dietary Intake of Women and Their Children

INTRODUCTION- Good nutrition is important for maintaining healthy growth and development. It is very essential to focus on women and child health as a healthy mother will give birth to a healthy child and a healthy child will develop into a productive citizen of the country. OBJECTIVES-The present study was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of Group-based counselling on the health status and dietary intake of the rural married women and their children. METHODOLOGY-A pre test- post test control group design was used.120 subjects (women and their children) were selected randomly for the study. RESULTS- The pre and post test results of the women and the children revealed that there was more increase in all the parameters among Experimental group as compared to Control group. The gain score results revealed that, though Group-based counselling was significantly effective in increasing the body mass index, haemoglobin and other nutrients intake but it was not effective in improving fat intake among the women. Among children, group-based counseling has positive effect in improving the weight of children belonging to 5 to 19 years whereas it was not significantly effective in improving the other parameters. CONCLUSION-The study emphasizes on primary level prevention ie early identification of the problems, their referral and treatment which will help to improve the health status of women and their children which in turn will help to achieve our Millennium development goals. These types of community based programmes if continued for longer duration will definitely contribute to improve the health status of people.