Effect of training on food safety measures to the anganvadi helpers of ICDS

Abstract

A study entitled the "Effect of training on food safety measures to the anganwadi helpers of ICDS" was conducted to assess the effect of training on food safety measures on the knowledge, attitude and practices of the anganwadi helpers of ICDS. The study was carried out in two recently started ICDS projects namely Kazhakkutam and Thiruvananthapuram Urban II. All the anganwadi helpers in the functioning anganwadi centres of the two identified ICDS projects formed the respondents for the study. Based on the pretest score for knowledge, attitude and practice of the respondents their lacunae in the field of food safety measures were identified and a need based training was planned and carried out. The results revealed that the training programme had significant effect on the knowledge, attitude and practices of the anganwadi helpers. The analysis of variance used to test the influence of socio-economic and personal characteristics of the respondents on their knowledge, attitude and practice revealed that tenure of service had significant influence on changes in attitude. The analysis of correlation coefficient of socio-economic situations of the respondents with knowledge, attitude and practice revealed that there was significant negative association with place of residence and tenure of service with their knowledge level. Significant positive association was observed with place of residence, family size and tenure of service with attitudinal changes. The study also revealed significant positive association of pretest scores of practice with place of residence and tenure of service. It was also found that the infrastructure index of the anganwadi centres had significant association with pretest knowledge score but not with post score. Comparison of knowledge, attitude and practice scores of rural and urban project based respondents indicated that the respondents of rural project had more knowledge level when compared to the respondents of urban project. It could be effectively elevated from the results that the respondents of urban project had more attitude and practice level compared to the respondents of rural project.