NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF PREGNANT WOMEN ATTENDING ANTENATAL CLINIC IN NSUKKA HEALTH DISTRICT, ENUGU STATE

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the nutritional knowledge of pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in Nsukka Health District (NHD). The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population for the study consisted of 3,600 pregnant women attending antenatal clinic while multi-stage sampling procedure was used to draw a sample of 360 pregnant women used for the study. A self developed questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Direct approach was used to administer the questionnaire with the help of some research assistants who were thoroughly briefed. The research questions were answered using means and percentages while the null hypotheses were tested using the ANOVA at 0.5 level of significance. The findings revealed that Pregnant women aged 31-40 years, and 21-50 years possessed high and average nutritional knowledge respectively while those aged 15-20 and 41-49 years possessed low knowledge. Pregnant women with tertiary and secondary education had high and average level of nutritional knowledge respectively while those women with non-formal and primary education had low level of nutritional knowledge. There was significant difference in nutritional knowledge of pregnant women according to age and level of education. Based on the findings and conclusions, the researcher recommended among others the improvement of health care delivery system through the strengthening of human resources capacities and qualities of interaction between pregnant women and health care workers by the government.