Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Knowledge and Attitude regarding Antenatal Exercises among Antenatal Mothers

Background: Antenatal care is the primary factor in reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. It includes like nutrition, immunization, rest and sleep, personal hygiene and exercise. During pregnancy the specific discomforts can be relieved by doing regular antenatal exercises. Objectives: Effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge and attitude regarding antenatal exercises among antenatal mothers. Design: Quasi-experimental of one group pretest-posttest design was adopted for this study. Setting: Antenatal clinic at Adiparasakthi hospital and research institute, Melmaruvattur. Participants: 60 Antenatal mothers from 16-40 weeks of gestational age fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected by simple random sampling. Methods: A planned teaching programme was conducted for 45 minutes after pre test. Audio visual aids related to antenatal exercises were demonstrated to the antenatal mothers with the help of B.SC (N) final year students. After 7 days of STP, post test was conducted with the same questionnaire for the same group of mothers. The collected data were tabulated, analysed and interpreted by using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: In the post test knowledge out of 60 antenatal mothers, 80% had acquired adequate knowledge, and 78% of them had good attitude in post-test. The paired t-test showed that the teaching programme was statistically significant at p<0.05 level. The knowledge of antenatal mothers has been markedly increased after structured teaching programme. The chi-square test showed a significant association between knowledge and attitude of antenatal mothers with their demographic variables.