Abstract

Background: The current case-control study was conducted in Mchinji district in order to evaluate current infant and young child nutrition knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) of radio listener’s club members and non-RLC members and also to determine if the frequency of listening to Mudzi Wathu Community Radio is directly related to improved KAP of RLC members. Further, the study examined whether community radio listeners club members were more knowledgeable in IYCF nutrition than non-RLC members with the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of disseminating nutrition information through mass media in general and through radio in particular and the benefits of having community radio listening clubs on improvement of KAP in communities.
Methodology: Trained interviewers randomly selected 200 women and caregivers with children under five years of age (97 RLC members and 103 non-RLC members) in all the Traditional Authorities areas in Mchinji district where a structured questionnaire was administered to assess knowledge, attitudes and practices on infant and young child feeding nutrition information. Content analysis was employed to determine the type of nutrition information that was disseminated by the Mudzi Wathu Community Radio half a year before the time of the study.
Results: The study did not reveal statistical significant difference between RLC members and non-RLC members in relation to knowledge, attitude and practice regarding sources of water during breast feeding (p=0.022), importance of HIV testing during pregnancy (p=0.025), knowledge about the six food groups (p=0.001), initiation of solid foods (p=0.001) and few others such as behaviour change, health seeking behaviour and perception about malnutrition (p<0.05). Both the two studied groups had significantly adequate KAP of IYCN.
Conclusion: The results of this study provided a valuable insight into the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of listeners and non-listeners and highlighted important educational and information dissemination strategies. Strategies are needed for raising awareness of nutrition and preventable health related issues and for changing behaviours and practice.

Keywords: Knowledge; Attitude and practice; IYCN; RLC; Non RLC; Community radio