Educational Intervention founded on the Theory of Planned Behavior Approach on Complementary Feeding

Complementary feeding is advised in infants at six months of age, along with breastmilk. Mothers' knowledge and behavior in administering sufficient complementary feeding is essential to prevent malnutrition risk. The pandemic era witnessed a drop in conventional nutrition education, which might have led to decreased mothers' knowledge. 

 Rachmah Q et al., in their recent study, analyzed the effectiveness of nutrition education using online digital platforms (WhatsApp) to enhance a mother's behavior in giving nutritious complementary food established on the theory of planned behavior approach (TPB). The researchers developed ten educational sessions to improve one or more TPB constructs. They used media likes PowerPoint, text descriptions, posters, and video tutorials; and sent the materials through the WhatsApp application. For the study, the researchers recruited 155 subjects and assembled their data by the online method. Using a Likert-scale questionnaire, they evaluated the attitude, subjective norms, intention, and self-efficacy. 

The researchers found a response rate of 77.5%, with the mean age of mothers being 28.2 years, most among which were university graduates (80.2%) and working as private sector workers (40.0%). They found the average child's age was 6.6 months, and 78.2% were exclusively breastfed. Their study revealed that ten sessions of nutrition education and counseling over eight days increased the mother's knowledge and caused psychological changes, including the mother's attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, and intention toward giving nutritious complementary feeding. 

This study describes that even WhatsApp nutrition education can be effective in improving the mother's knowledge and behavior in providing nutritious complementary food; thus, it can be used as an effective armamentarium. In the future, the Ministry of Health, from the district to the national level, could implement this type of education as an alternative to conventional nutrition education through scheduled classes.

Rachmah Q, Astina J, Atmaka DR, Khairani L. The Effect of Educational Intervention Based on Theory of Planned Behavior Approach on Complementary Feeding: A Randomized Controlled Trial. International Journal of Pediatrics. 2023;2023. https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/1086919