Effectiveness of Animations, Comic Strips and Booklets as Educational Media for Female Teens Concerning the First Thousand Days of Life

Abstract

Background and Objective: Preventative strategies and remedies for stunting must be accurately initiated. One of the strategies is to educate girls concerning the first 1000 days of life (FTDL). Such education could be delivered by various media. This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of animated books, comic strips and booklets as media to deliver nutritional education about the FTDL. Materials and Methods: A total of 45 respondents consisting of three groups of students from three private high schools in Lubuk Pakam were included. Each group received only one kind of media. The three types of media were designed by the researcher, with the assistance of specialists for the design of the first two types of media. All the media consisted of 4 series. Information pertaining to the respondentsʼ characteristics were collected by the interviewer. There was also a pretest and post test given to the respondents to assess their knowledge and attitudes. The media intervention was conducted two times. Results: The difference in knowledge before and after the intervention was 8.53 on average. The averaged knowledge before and after the intervention in all the groups was analyzed by Wilcoxon statistics, with p = 0.001, showing an increase in the respondentsʼ knowledge and attitudes. The maximum average difference in the respondentsʼ attitudes was observed in the Animation group. The Kruskal Wallis test revealed (p = 0.001) a significant difference in the knowledge and attitudes among the groups. The result of the knowledge/attitude N-Gain showed a higher effectiveness of animated books than that of comics and booklets. Conclusion: Animation media is more effective than comics and booklets for improving the knowledge and attitudes of female teens regarding the first 1000 days of life.