A pre-experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding eating disorders among adolescent girls in selected high schools at Mukerian, Punjab

Abstract

Adolescent is a delicate phase of life. Many teens are concerned about how they look and can feel self conscious about their body. This concern aggravates more when they are going through puberty and undergo dramatic physical changes and face new social pressures which results in eating disorders. Eating disorders are one of the most common psychiatric problems faced by adolescent girls. Anorexia nervosa involves severely dieting, fasting and often exercising compulsively. Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent episodes of overeating which were followed by attempts to minimize the effects of overeating by vomiting, exercise, fasting. A quantitative research approach and pre-experimental one group pretest-posttest research design was used. Total 50 sample of high school adolescent girls were selected by purposive sampling technique. Data collection was done through self structured knowledge questionnaire. The collected data were analysed by calculating frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and ‘t'test and F test. As per overall pre-test knowledge score, most of the adolescent girls i.e. 92% had poor knowledge, 4% had average knowledge and 4% of them had good knowledge regarding Eating Disorders. After structured teaching programme most of adolescent girls i.e. 96% had good knowledge, 4% had average knowledge and none of them had poor knowledge. The difference between the mean pre-test and post-test score was statistically significant at p<0.001 level. Structured teaching programme was an effective tool in improving knowledge of adolescent girls regarding eating disorders.