The Impact of Post-partum Women's Education on the Level of Anxiety and Readiness To Take Care for Low Birth Weight Infants at Home

Low Birth Weight (LBW) Infant is one of the risk factors that contribute to infant mortality, especially in the perinatal period, thus it requires special attention and care. Anxiety and difficulty in caring for LBW infants at home related to the lack of involvement of the mother during hospitalization. The purpose of this study is to observe the effect of education on postpartum women on the level of anxiety and readiness to care for Low Birth Weight infants at home. This study was a quasi-experimental study with Nonequivalent Control Group Design with Pre-Post Test Design. The study populations were all postpartum women with LBW infants who were being cared for in General District Hospital Semarang and Tugurejo General District Hospital Semarang. The samples in each group were 19 postpartum women, the data were taken by consecutive sampling. Measurement tool for anxiety variable used Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (ZSAS), and tool for mother readiness variable used a questionnaire. For data collection of the experimental group, mothers were educated with booklet in 2 meetings while the control group of mothers with LBW infants was given verbal explanation according to the Hospital standard. Data Analysis used Mann Whitney and Wilcoxon tests. The study results showed that there were changes on the level of anxiety after the education by using booklet from 94.7% of mild anxiety became 84.2% of no anxiety or normal, there was an increase in the readiness of the mothers in caring for LBW infants after the education with booklet from 52.6% to 68.9%. There was a difference on the level of anxiety and readiness of the postpartum mothers in caring for LBW babies among the experimental group with education and the control group. (P value = 0.0001 and 0.004). To improve the readiness of mothers in caring for LBW infants at home, then the usage of booklet should be added in the standard operating procedure of LBW Baby Care when the health workers provide health education for postpartum women with LBW infants