A Study to Assess the Knowledge, Practices and Attitude of Mothers on Newborn Care during COVID -19 Pendemic

Abstract

In India, most of the deliveries happen in homes under the watchful eyes of elders or Trained Birth Attendants’ (TBA). The care the new born receives depends a lot on the knowledge, skills and attitude of the mothers during that covid-19 pandemic mothers are supposed to be lacking in knowledge, practices and attitude of newborn care which is very essential. Ac to need of present scenario we conduct the study with objectives to assess the knowledge, practices and attitude, on new born care, among mothers during covid-19& tried to find the relationship between knowledge on newborn care and selected socio-demographic variables among p mothers. The next objective is to find the association between attitudes on newborn care and selected socio- demographic variables amongmothers& to find the association between newborn care practices of mothers with selected socio-demographic variables. For thepresent study A descriptive survey was adopted to collect data through structured interview schedule, structured items and an attitude scale from 100  mothers at M P. The data was tallied and analyzed using mean, percentage, Chi-Square test and F test for averages and associations. The findings revealed the average knowledge, practices and attitude scores to be 70.90%, 79.45% and 81.72%. The sociodemographic variables of age, education, occupation and income were found to be significantly influencing knowledge, practices and attitude level there was a significant correlation between practice and attitudes levels. The findings of the study showed that majority of the mothers were between 20 to 40 years old had a family income more than 5000Rs, an educational status PUC and lived in joint and extended families. The knowledge levels of  mothers were to be good at 70.90% this proves H0. The practices level and attitude levels were also high though there was a significant correlation between practices and attitude.

The mother is usual person for the immediate care provider of the newborn. Hence, her knowledge, attitude and practices regarding newborn care is influenced by various factors. Even when knowledge is adequate, they may not practice it correctly nor have favorable attitude towards the care of newborn.

Therefore, educational programs specially directed at mother are a need for time and the satisfactory performance could be owed to factors such as antenatal clinics, antenatal counseling, mass media companies and presence of seniors and relatives at home.