A comparative study to assess the knowledge regarding mild and moderate mental retardation of children among primary school teachers in selected urban and rural schools, Jalandhar (Punjab) with a view to develop an information booklet.

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY: Mental retardation is not a disease but a condition in which the intellectual faculties are never manifested or have developed sufficiently to enable the retarded person to acquire such knowledge. The objective of the study to assess the knowledge score regarding mild and moderate mental retardation of children among the school teacher in urban & rural area, to compare the knowledge score regarding mild and moderate mental retardation of children among the urban and rural school teachers, to find out the association between urban and rural school teacher knowledge score regarding mild and moderate mental retardation and with their demographic variablesandto develop an information booklet regarding mild and moderate mental retardation. METHODOLOGY: A comparative non-experiment is used. The setting is a urban and rural primary schools, Jalandhar. The sample includes 60 primary school teachers selected by purposive sampling technique. The tool consisted: Part 1 demographic variables and Part 2 Self structured knowledge questionnaire. Reliability of the tool was established by using split half method. RESULTS: The findings of the study show that the mean score and SD of rural primary school on knowledge according to area. Definition and epidemiology the mean score is 3 and SD is 0.5, according to etiology the mean score is 5.6 and SD is 0.5, according to types the mean score is 1.2 and SD is 0.833, according to characteristics the mean score is 2.1 and SD is 0.600, according to sign and symptoms and diagnostic tests the mean score is 0.7 and SD is 0.441, according to prevention the mean score is 2.4 and SD is 0.527 and according to management the mean score is 4.5 and SD is 1.236. CONLUSION: Majority (60%) of urban primary school teachers had satisfactory knowledge regarding mild and moderate mental retardation in children while the majority (83.3%) rural primary school teachers had satisfactory knowledge regarding mild and moderate mental retardation in children.