title: Effectiveness of two methods of advising mothers on infant feeding and dietetic management of diarrhoea at an outpatient clinic in Peru.
abstract: The effectiveness of two educational intervention programmes in promoting infant feeding practices was assessed among mothers of small children attending a hospital's Oral Rehydration Unit in Peru. One group of mothers received 5 min of counselling and a recipe pamphlet. The other group received the same counselling plus a 20-min cooking demonstration. Both interventions had a statistically significant (p < 0.05) impact on maternal knowledge and practices; differences between the impact of the two practices were negligible. After merging both groups into a single sample, it was observed that changes over time were significantly large (p < 0.05). Knowledge rates were 27.6% before the intervention, 73.7% 2 days later and 75% 30 days later. The corresponding figures for practices were 2.6%, 58.3% and 37.5% respectively. We conclude that when place, time and message are adequately chosen, a simple method may be an effective way of good communication. We suggest that a larger implementation trial would be useful before starting larger infant feeding programmes.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigación Nutricional, Lima, Peru.
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Jacoby
authors.forename: B M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Benavides
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Bartlett
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Figueroa
mesh_terms: D003376:Counseling; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000178:diet therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D010568:Peru / Q000453:epidemiology; D014886:Weaning