Mother's attitude towards child's health education and play in ICDS and non-ICDS areas.

ABSTRACT

PIP: Researchers distributed a questionnaire designed to assess mother's attitude towards her child's health, education, and play to 419 mothers of 6-8 year old children in Dalmau and Lalganj Blocks in India. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) has been operating in Dalmau Block since 1975-1976 therefore women here made up the study group. The mothers in Lalganj Block, which was similar to Dalmau Block, comprised the control group. The majority of children from both groups had mothers who were apathetic towards their child's health, education, and play. There was a significant difference between the positive attitudes towards child's health of mothers of ICDS children (38.78%) and those of the non-ICDS children (17.56%) [p.001], however. Researchers observed a negative attitude towards health in the mothers of 1.41% of ICDS children and 5.37% of non-ICDS children (p.001). Further, more mothers in the ICDS block (24.76% of the children) had a positive attitude towards child's education than those in the non-ICDS block (16.59%) [p.001]. 2.34% of the ICDS children's mothers and 10.24% of the non-ICDS children's mothers had a negative attitude towards education (p.001). Even though a significant difference also existed between the positive attitudes of the 2 groups concerning child's play (p.01), the difference was less significant than it was for health and education. Moreover most of the mothers did not realize the importance of play in child development, but play conditions were better in the ICDS block, however. The results demonstrate that the ICDS program has indeed had an impact on changing the attitude of mothers, but ICDS workers must closely look at what needs to be changed in the program so as to bring about a positive attitude towards health, education, and play in the majority of mothers.