A Study to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Knowledge Regarding Prevention of Cataract among Middle-Aged Adults in a Selected Panchayath in Kannur District

Abstract

Background: Vision is considered as an important part of well-being and an inevitable factor in retaining the quality of life. Vision impairment due to cataract can impose a significant burden on any community. Despite being the leading cause of treatable blindness, the lack of awareness about cataract and its treatment is still a major hurdle in decreasing the blindness in developing countries especially in the rural areas.

Aim: The study aims to assess the knowledge of middle-aged adults regarding prevention of cataract, evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on the prevention of cataract and find the association between pre-test knowledge and selected demographic variables.

Methods:An evaluative approach with pre-experimental one group pretest- post-test design was used in the present study. Sixty samples were selected using the convenience sampling method. Structured knowledge questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge regarding the prevention of cataract. The conceptual framework used for the study was based on system model by Von Bertalanffy.

Results: Pre-test data showed that 78.4% of the subjects had average knowledge score, 8.3% had good knowledge score, and another 13.3% had poor knowledge regarding prevention of cataract. A teaching programme regarding prevention of cataract was administered to the samples. The mean post-test knowledge score (17.00) was higher than the mean pre-test score (10.75). The calculated t-value (27.62) was greater than the table value (2.00) at 0.05 level of significance.

Conclusion: The study findings revealed that the teaching programme was effective in improving the knowledge of middle-aged adults regarding prevention of cataract. There was no significant association between knowledge level and demographic variables.