Drama for behaviour change communicatuon on breastfeeding practices in rural area of Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: The study aimed at using drama to promote behaviour change in the feeding practices(FP) by mothers of under five children in rural areas of Nigeria.
Methods: Cross sectional surveys (baseline and endline) were employed and simple random sampling procedure was used to select 364 mothers. The study was carried out in four rural communities with two as the control. Mothers were interviewed on breastfeeding (BF) practices. The project was between August 2012 to May 2014. Data was collected at baseline and endline to assess feeding practice of mothers. Drama script was developed, recorded and intervention was for five weeks.  Breastfeeding practices of mothers were examined and analysis was done to  compare the intervention and control groups Chi-square statistic was used to determine difference.
Results: Water, herbs, glucose and infant formula were used as prelacteal feed. The use of prelacteal feeding did not record a significant change as health care providers encouraged the use at birth and before six months. However mothers initiated  breastfeeding earlier after intervention. There was reduction in use of expressed  milk and infant formula after intervention. Only 29.3% of the children were  exclusively breastfed, and the number of feeding of breast milk increased significant during the day and at night. About 54.3% mothers continued breast feeding for 2 years as against 0.0% at baseline survey.
Conclusion: In this study, drama was shown to be an effective method of behaviour change communication to increase infant and young child feeding practices among mothers.

Key words: intervention, drama, breastfeeding, complementary feeding