This effect of education on women's knowledge about the factors effect iron and the absorbtion of iron

This study aims at determining the level of women's knowledge about the factors effecting iron and the absorption of iron. It also at revealing the effect of different teaching methods and techniques, which will be used to teach these issues. Ninety women who were attending Çankaya Public Education Centre were selected as the subjects of this study. These subjects were divided into 3 equal groups, and the fisrt group was exposed to a face to face classroom teaching. Only manuals were handed in to the subjects of the second group, and the third group, which was the control group, was not given any education or manuals. In order to obtain data and in order to keep a record of this data about the subjects' knowledge about food consumption, all the subjects in all groups were interviewed and an interview form was used in the pre-study and post-study stages. 35.6% of the subjects were between 36-45 years old, and 46.7% of them were high school graduates. It was revealed that 56.7% of the subjects did not know the sources of iron, 30.0% had inefficient knowledge about the iron sources, and 13.3% of them had efficient knowledge about the iron sources. In the groups, which education was supplied to, the differences among the means of their grades obtained in the tests for their knowledge about the rich sources and about the factors which effect the absorbtion of iron were considerably important (p=0.000). The rations of the subjects before and after the education program in the face to face classroom education group, who consumed inefficient iron were 50.0% - 40.0%, in the subject group, which was supplied with only manuals, the rations, the for before and after the distribution of the written materials were 56.6%-60.0%, and in the control group, ratios were 60.0%-73.3%. A decrease was observed in the number of the subjects of the face to face education group who consumed inefficient iron, whereas an increase of 4.4% was observed in the number of the subject who consumed inefficient iron in the group which only written materials were supplied with, and an increase of 13.3% was observed in the number of the subject of the control group who consumed inefficient iron. The findings of this study show that education causes a considerable increase in the level of women's knowledge about iron and anemia. It is also suggested that education will be have positive effects on the protection against anemia and treatment of anemia. Key Words: Iron, Anemia, Education of Nutrition