Evaluating the effectiveness of a community-based health promotion intervention on knowledge improvement regarding low birth weight and its determinants among antenatal couples in Sri Lanka

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BackgroundImprovement of the knowledge of pregnant mothers and their partners related to low birth weight (LBW) is a vital factor in preventing LBW and reducing its prevalence.ObjectivesImplement and evaluate the effectiveness of a community based health promotion intervention on pregnant mothers and their partners to increase knowledge on birth weight and its determinants. The second objective is to determine the difference of the birth weight after implementing the intervention.MethodsA quasi experimental study design was used, and the setting was 806 pregnant mothers, 403 each in two districts. In 26 ANCs, twenty six initial training sessions were conducted as a group, with an average of three hours for each session. Three follow up sessions were conducted in each ANC over 04 months (in total 104 sessions). All sessions were conducted in groups of 10 to 20 antenatal couples. The pregnant mothers and their partners completed interviewer-administered questionnaires. Pre and post data were analysed based on four major knowledge categories using statistical methods. The McNemar’s Chi Square test; Chi Square test, Fisher’s Exact test, Paired t test, Student’s independent sample t test, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test and Mann Whitney U test methods were applied as appropriate.ResultsBoth mothers and their partners in the intervention group (IG) reached significantly higher gains in knowledge than in the comparison group (CG). The participants who got the lowest scores for knowledge, at the pre assessment, in IG, also improved more than the CG {mothers (p = 0.002) and partners (p = 0.007)}. The mean birth weight shows that the IG has significantly improved for both mothers (p < 0.001) and partners (p = 0.013) with low knowledge scores (< 50% of total).ConclusionsKnowledge about birth weight and its determinants among pregnant mothers and their partners improved significantly.