Abstract:
For proper human development to occur, people should have access to information. If
people utilise the information received and improve on what they are doing, then proper
human development would be achieved. The Extension Unit of Ministry of Health (i.e.
Public Health Unit) is charged with making information regarding infant feeding
practices available to mothers with the aim that if mothers use the knowledge embodied
in the information, they would feed their infants well, thereby reducing the incidence of
malnutrition in Ghana. However, the rate of malnutrition is still high. It therefore became
important to investigate the reasons for this high malnutrition rate in Ghana, since
majority of the pregnant women attend pre and post natal clinics where they are given
information on proper ways to feed infants by the public health nurses. A total of 100
mothers were randomly selected from the five polyclinics in the Accra Metropolis for the
study. A pre-test of the structured interview schedule was carried out at the Maternal and
Child Health Unit of the Achimota Hospital.
The main concepts considered in the study are the mothers background characteristics,
methods/channels of information delivery/acquisition, knowledge levels of mothers and
changes in infant feeding practices. Data on these attributes were collected using a
structured interview schedule. Frequencies and percentages were generated from the
coded data using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).
The results indicated that none of the personal characteristics such as educational
background, age, experience and contact with extension agents of the mothers have any
significant influence on the mothers’ knowledge. The findings again suggest that
receiving information from interpersonal sources such as mother-to-mother played a
significant role in information dissemination among mothers. However radio, as a source
of mformation was not so much used. This could mean that either infant feeding program
are not transmitted through such source or the mothers do not like listening to radio. This
suggests the need for extensionists to be well versed in the use of multiple information
delivery channels. It also suggests that a critical situation analysis of the target beneficiaries can help in categorising target groups into specific recommendation
domains to bring a change in knowledge.
Again the findings also suggest that, the changes that would occur in clients invariably
depend on the type of information received. This implies that extension agents should be
very careful to deliver only messages that have been planned to bring desired changes in
their clients. The findings show that knowing per se is different from practising since the
trialability of the idea was found to influence the mother's decision-making behaviour
regarding infant feeding behaviour.
