MSc

A study entitled the "Effectiveness of lEC materials on health and
nutritional practices of adolescent girls" was conducted to evaluate the
effectiveness of information education and communication materials on
the knowledge and adoption of health and nutritional practices by the
adolescent girls and also to find out the comparative effectiveness of the
formulated lEC materials.
The study was carried out in Venganoor and Thiruvallam Higher
Secondary Schools in Thiruvananthapuram district. The formulated lEC
materials viz., flash cards, charts, posters and leaflets were tested for their
effecti veness. The topic selected to teach the respondents were importance
of nutritious food, body changes in adolescent period, health care and
reproductive health and hygiene. Hundred adolescent girls of APL and
BPL families belonging to the age group of 13 to 15 years form the study
sample. All respondents were exposed to the selected topics at one-week
interval using the formulated lEC materials.
Gain in knowledge, retention in knowledge and the adoption of
gained knowledge on health, and nutritional practices are the dependent
variables. Age, family size, type of family, monthly income, educational
status of the respondent and family, mass media contact, basic facilities
available in the family, health profile and nutritional status were selected
as independent variables.
The results revealed that the educational programme USing lEC
materials had significant effect on the knowledge and adoption of health
and nutritional practices by the adolescent girls. The gain in knowledge
and retention was more on the topic reproductive health and its hygiene.
The lEC materials i. e., lecture + flashcard + leaflet was the most effecti ve
in terms of gain knowledge and adoption of knowledge. The knowledge


adoption was also more on the topic reproductive health and hygiene and
the retention was more in the respondent, who were exposed to treatment 4
i. e., lecture + demonstration + exhibition.
The correlation between the overall knowledge gain, retention,
adoption and socio-economic variables revealed that the retention have
significant relationship with income, education and food consumption
pattern. The adoption of the respondents of APL and BPL families have
significant relationship with the personal hygiene.
The relative effectiveness of the formulated TEe materials revealed
that there was significant difference between the selected lEe materials of
teaching. The lecture methods in combination with formulated lEe
materials have more influence on the gain retention and adoption of
knowledge when compared with the lecture method alone.