The role of nursing in promoting nutritional awareness: insights from interactive educational approaches

Nurses are pivotal in tackling malnutrition by implementing innovative and engaging health education strategies. Unhealthy dietary patterns are a major global health problem that can negatively impact child mortality and morbidity. Interactive methods, such as puppet shows and flashcards, have emerged as effective tools to promote nutrition awareness among children.

This study explores the role of nursing in promoting children's nutritional awareness by assessing the effectiveness of interactive educational programs, specifically puppet shows and flashcards, compared to traditional lecture-based programs.

A quasi-experimental study with a pre-post design was applied across four maternity and child health (MCH) centres from May to August 2023. Children were divided into three groups: a puppet show group (n = 31), a flashcard group (n = 30), and a control group (n = 30) that received the program through traditional methods. Children's nutritional awareness was collected through nutritional knowledge and attitude questionnaires, and the children's perspectives on educational experiences questionnaire using focus interviews. Then, the three educational programs were designed and implemented; the questionnaires were collected again after implementing the programs.

The study reports a significant improvement in children's nutritional knowledge and attitudes (p = 0.000) after implementing the educational programs. Puppet shows achieved the highest mean in nutritional knowledge (12.74 ± 1.63) and positive attitude (52.16 ± 5.279).

Puppet shows are superior to traditional lectures and flashcards for promoting nutritional health among school-aged children when delivered by nurses. This underscores the need to train nurses in healthcare centres on interactive and visual teaching strategies to enhance children's health education and disease prevention efforts.

Not applicable.