EFFECTS OF HEALTH EDUCATION ON LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE AND PREVENTIVE BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS ANAEMIA AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN IN RIVERS EAST SENATORIAL DISTRICT RIVERS STATE

This study investigated the effect of health education on the level of knowledge and preventive behaviour towards anaemia among pregnant women in Rivers East senatorial district of Rivers State. Four research questions were answered and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The pre-test and post-test research design was adopted with a population which consisted of 133,545women of childbearing age in Rivers East senatorial district. A multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to select a sample size of 600 hundred respondents for the study. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire and analysis was carried out using SPSS version 25.0. The findings of the study showed a significant effect of health education on knowledge of [F= 0.000, p<0.05; eta square = 0.06] and preventive behaviour [F= 0.000, p<0.05; eta square = 0.20] towards anaemia among pregnant women. The effect of the intervention on knowledge was found to be significant based on educational level [F = 0.257, p<0.05]. The study concluded that, heath education has a significant effect both on the knowledge of anemia and preventive behaviour towards anaemia among pregnant women in Obio/Akpor. It was recommended among others that the medical officers in each of the antenatal clinics should maintain knowledge and preventive behaviour by making a schedule for health education on anaemia prevention from time to time, to keep on increasing the knowledge of these women on anaemia prevention in pregnancy.