A Study to Assess Empowerment of Adolescent Girls in Terms of Knowledge-Based Life Skills Education About Child Survival and Safe Motherhood Practices.

Abstract

This study has been designed with the intention to bring a substantial change in the mindsets or life skills of adolescent girls at secondary school level regarding their concept of child survival and safe motherhood practices in order to deal effectively with real-life situations. A cross-sectional analytical study was carried out with 538 adolescent girls regarding assessment of their knowledge on variables like correct nutrition, iron-deficiency anemia and its prevention, care during pregnancy, safe birth, skilled birth attendance, breast feeding and complementary feeding practices, child's growth and development issues, immunization, management of common childhood illnesses. etc. Analysis was done using Mc Nemar's Chi-square test for paired data. Values obtained were highly significant for nutrition, iron-deficiency anemia and its prevention, care during pregnancy, and management of childhood illnesses variables, whereas study findings were found to be insignificant for rest of the variables. This study based on life skills approach and counseling worked well to promote and motivate adolescent girls for positive decision making. In this context, every adolescent girl should be encouraged to raise her unsolved issues in order to achieve safe motherhood plus growth and development of their children.