INTRODUCTION:

The nutritional status of an individual is often the result of many interrelated factors. It is influenced by the adequacy of food intake both in terms of quantity and quality and also by the physical health of the individual. There are many nutritional problems which affect vast segments of our population.

The major ones which deserve special mention are highlighted; in adolescents, Emphasis on preparing foods needed for growth and physical fitness, selection of iron-rich food items. Dietary requirements vary according to rate of physical growth, athletic and social activity and stage of sexual maturation. During puberty, there is rapid growth which requires increased energy requirement. Teenage girls need more iron containing food. Calcium and vitamin D should be fulfilled to promote bony growth. Avoidance of cigarette smoking is essential which may contribute to poor nutritional status by decreasing appetite and increasing body’s metabolic rate. Special nutritional interventions may be needed in excessive eating, obesity, extreme food fads, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, constipation, iron-deficiency anaemia, malnutrition, iron-deficiency anaemia, iodine deficiency and teenage pregnancy. According to WHO “the adolescent period is from the age of 10 years to 19 years i.e. the second decade of life.” It can be distinguished as early adolescence, age 10-13 years; middle adolescence, age 14-16 years; late adolescence, age 17-20 years. The period of youth is from 15 through 24 years. The adolescent and youth together are phrased as young people (10-24 years)

NEED FOR STUDY:

It is public health problem. In our country, the main reason for this vulnerability is the easy susceptibility to malnutrition, underweight and infection. For assessing health and nutritional status of a community, clinical examination has always been and remains an important practical method. The method is based on the examination for changes believed to be related to inadequate nutrition that can be seen or felt in superficial epithelial tissues, especially skin, eyes, hair and buccal mucosa. Govt of India established many programme to treat nutritional problem and control malnutrition. In adolescents it’s important to focus on this issue.

Since today's adolescent girls are facing menstrual problem, she has to meet the growing needs of the physical stature hence in this connection the investigator felt the need to know the importance of nutrition among adolescent girls and motivate them to maintain good nutritional status.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

“A Study to evaluate the effectiveness of a structure teaching programme on knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls in selected PU colleges at Mysuru”.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To assess the knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls.

2. To determine the effectiveness of Structure teaching programme regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls.

3. To find the association between level of knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls with their selected personal variables.

HYPOTHESES:

H₁- There will be significant difference in the mean pre-test and post-test knowledge scores regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls.

H₂- There will be significant association between the level of knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls and their selected personal variables.

CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK:

The conceptual framework of the study is based on the Imogene King’s Goal Attainment Theory.

ASSUMPTIONS:

1. Adolescent girls may have some knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency.

2. Educational intervention may improve their knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency.

3. Improvement in knowledge may influence their practice.

DELIMITATION:

Study is delimited to the adolescent girls who are studying in selected PU College at Mysore.

METHODOLOGY:

Research Approach:

Evaluative approach was adopted for the present study.

Research Design:

One Group Pre-test-Post-test research design was adopted for present study

Schematic Representation of Research Design

The symbolic representation is

O₁X O₂

Keys

O₁- Pre- test, X - Intervention, O₂- Post-test

Variables of the Study:

Dependent variable:

Knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency.

Independent variable:

structure teaching program me on nutritional deficiency.

Other variables:

Selected personal variables viz., age, educational qualification, religion, place of residence, dietary pattern and previous exposure to STP regarding nutritional deficiency.

SOURCES OF THE DATA

Setting of the Study

The present study was conducted in JSS PU College at Mysore.

Population:

Population comprised of adolescent girls in selected JSS PU college at Mysore.

Sample:

40 adolescent girls were selected as samples for the present study.

Sampling Technique

Non- probability purposive sampling technique was used in the present study to select 40 Adolescent girls in selected colleges at Mysore.

SAMPLING CRITERIA:

Inclusion criteria:

Adolescent girls who are:

· Available during the period of data collection.

· Willing to participate in the study

Exclusion criteria:

· Adolescent Girls who are not willing to participate in the study.

Data collection techniques and instruments:

Development of tool:

The tool was developed through following steps:

1. Review of research and non research literature related to nutritional deficiency.

2. Opinion of experts from the nursing department.

Description of tool:

The tool consists of two sections.

Section A:

Consists of Proforma for selected personal variables of respondents seeking information such as age, educational qualification, religion, place of residence, dietary pattern and previous exposure to STP regarding nutritional deficiency.

Section B:

Includes 26 items of structured knowledge questionnaire regarding nutritional deficiency.

SCORING

Section B consists of 26 items (knowledge questionnaires) regarding nutritional deficiency. Each question carries 4 distracters out of which one distracter will be the right answer. Answering the right distracter will carry one mark. For the total score obtained, grades will be assigned as mentioned below:

· < 13 Inadequate knowledge

· 13-20 Average knowledge

· > 20 Adequate knowledge

Content validity:

The tool was given to 7 experts in nursing field, 07 experts ij nursing to establish content validity. There was 100% agreement by all experts. However there were few suggestions to modify some questions and they were incorporated in the final draft.

Reliability:

The reliability was established through split half method by administering it to 40 adolescent girls in JSS College, Mysore. Co efficient correlation for structured knowledge questionnaire was 0.8 Hence the tool was found to be reliable.

Procedure for the data collection:

An informed consent was obtained from each subject to indicate their willingness to participate in the study. On day one pre-test was conducted by administering structured knowledge questionnaire to 40 Sample, they took 30 minutes to complete structured knowledge questionnaire. On the same day an STP was conducted for the same group for 45minutes. Further on day 8 post-test was conducted by using structured knowledge questionnaire. The data collection process was terminated after thanking each respondent for their participation and their co operation.

RESULTS:

SECTION 1: Description of selected personal variables of study subjects:

Table 1: Frequency and percentage distribution of adolescent girls according to their selected personal variables

SI. No	Sample characteristics	Frequency	Percentage
1	Age in years
1.1	19-20	27	67.50%
1.2	21-22	13	32%
2	Educational status
2.1	I PUC	30	75%
2.2	II PUC	10	25%
3	Religion
3.1	Hindu	32	80%
3.2	Christian	6	15%
3.3	Muslim	2	5%
3.4	Others	0	0
4	Place of Residence
4.1	Hostel	22	55%
4.2	Home	18	45%
5	Dietary pattern
5.1	vegetarian	36	90%
5.2	mixed diet	4	10%
6	A. Aware of nutritional deficiency
a	Yes	28	70%
b	No	12	30%
	If yes
	B. Source of information
a	Mass media	16	57%
b	friends	7	25%
c	Relatives	5	18%
d	others	0	0

SECTION -2: Effectiveness of an STP on knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among Adolescent Girls.

Table 2: Frequency and percentage distribution of adolescent girls according to their level of knowledge n=40

Knowledge level	Pre-test f (%)	Post-test f(%)
Inadequate knowledge (<13)	26 (40)	0
Average knowledge (13-20)	11 (37.5)	14 (20)
Adequate knowledge (>20)	03 (22.5)	26 (80)

Table 3: Mean, median, standard deviation, range of pre-test and post-test knowledge scores of adolescent girls n=40

Test	Mean	Median	Range	Standard deviation
Pre-test	9.4	7	6-11	+1.45
post-test	17.8	12.5	14-19	+1.28

Significance of difference between the mean pre-test and post-test knowledge scores regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls:

To determine the significance of difference between the mean pre-test and post-test knowledge scores regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls paired ‘t’ test was computed.

The null hypothesis is stated as follows

H₀₁: There will be no significant difference between the mean pre-test and post-test knowledge scores regarding nutritional deficiency among the adolescent girls:

SECTION- 3

Association between the level of knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls and their selected personal variables:

To find out the association between the pre-test levels of knowledge regarding the nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls with their personal variables, chi square was computed and following null hypothesis is stated.

H₀₂: There will be no significant association between the level of knowledge regarding nutritional deficiency among adolescent girls and their selected personal variables:

Calculated chi square value showed that there was no significant association found between the level of knowledge of adolescent girls regarding nutritional deficiency and their selected personal variables. Hence the null hypothesis is accepted and it is inferred that there is no significant association between level of knowledge of adolescent girls regarding nutritional deficiency and their selected personal variable.

IMPLICATIONS:

The findings of present study have implications for nursing practice, nursing education, nursing administration and nursing research.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Similar study can be carried out on a large scale to generalize the findings.

2. A Similar study can be conducted among high school girls.

3. A comparative study can be conducted between staff nurses and adolescent girls regarding nutritional deficiency.

CONCLUSION:

It was concluded that educational intervention was effective in enhancing the knowledge of adolescent girls regarding nutritional deficiency. Study finding also emphasizes the role of educational strategies to improve the knowledge of health personnel’s regarding nutritional deficiency.

REFERENCE:

1. Janice. E. Hitchcock (2003) “Community Health Nursing Caring In Action” (2^nd Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, United States Page no. 549 – 552.

2. K Park (2005) “Text Book of preventive and social medicine (15^th Edition) Bhanot Publishers Page No:483

3. Basavanthappa BT (2005) “Nursing Research” (1^st edition) Jaypee publishers, Page no: 112-114.

4. Marcia Stanhope (2006) “Community and Public Health Nursing” (sixth edition) Mosby publications Virginia Page No. 848 – 866.

5. Sunder Roa (1999) “An Introduction to Bio-statistics” (3^rd edition) New Delhi

6. World Health Organization. The prevalence of anaemia in women: a tabulation of available information. 2nd ed. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2004.

Received on 21.10.2018 Modified on 05.12.2018

Int. J. of Advances in Nur. Management. 2019; 7(1): 41-44.

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2652.2019.00011.8

Knowledge scores	Mean	Mean Difference	S.D Difference	Degree of freedom	Paired 't' value
Pre-test	9.4
		8.4	0.17	39	2.33*
Post-test	17.8