Htoo Htoo Kyaw Soe and Ratana Somrongthong
A community based safe motherhood pictorial handbook health education intervention was conducted in three Pa-Oh villages located in Shan State, Myanmar during 2010, aiming to promote knowledge, attitude, practice and intention to practice of maternal health care in antenatal, delivery and postnatal period including breastfeeding and family planning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of safe motherhood health education intervention which used pictorial handbook developed in Pa-Oh’s social and cultural context. A mixed methodology, quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted in this study. Pre-test post-test comparison of same group design was used for quantitative part and a total of 257 reproductive age women participated. Five focus group discussions and informal interview with eleven women who had child birth during project time was done for qualitative part. The result showed that the effect of health education and communications was significantly increased with the introduction of pictures in the design of new health education materials. There were also positive changes of knowledge, attitude, practice and intention to practice of maternal health care during antenatal, delivery and postnatal period including early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding and family planning from baseline to 6 months follow up.
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