INTRODUCTION:

Safe drinking water can be a vital link between life and death. A recent report from Washington, world watch Institute has declared that one of the first and fore most basic changes that lengthen life expectancy is the clean water. Every Indian face every day the problem of obtaining safe and portable water!

India suffers from a high burden of diarrhea and other water-borne diseases due to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene practices among human population. With age the immune system becomes complex and antibody alone does not determine susceptibility to diseases which increases the chances of waterborne disease among elderly population. Therefore, the study examines the prevalence and predictors of water- borne diseases among elderly in India.¹

Safe water is one of the most important felt needs in public health in developing countries in the twenty first century. The year 2005 marked the beginning of "International Decade for Action: Water for Life" and renewed effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goal to reduce by half the proportion of the world's population.²

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

Poor water quality becomes inevitable when water gets polluted with industrial waste, human waste, animal waste, garbage, untreated sewage, chemical effluents, etc. Drinking or cooking with such polluted water leads to waterborne diseases and infection such as amoebiasis, giardiasis, and toxoplasmosis, Contaminated water could carry viruses such as Hepatitis A and E, bacteria like E. coli (E. coli can be passed from hand to hand, such as via vendors of street food or food handled by someone carrying).³

E. coli bacteria. It can lead to food poisoning). The result: dangerous diseases like cholera and typhoid fever. Other waterborne diseases include diarrhea, dysentery, polio and meningitis. Contaminated water for washing can cause skin and infectious eye disease such as Trachoma. Trachoma can lead to visual impairment or blindness, Rural populations are more at risk from waterborne illnesses, but everyone faces risks of polluted or contaminated water. Waterborne illness can affect anyone, anywhere. The risk is more for infants, younger children, the elderly and patients of diabetes, chronic diseases of heart disease, kidney, and etc.⁴

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

1. To assess the knowledge regarding prevention of water borne disease among the mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area.

2. To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding prevention of water borne diseases among the mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area at Rajkot.

3. To find out the association between selected demographic variable and pre-test level of knowledge regarding prevention of water borne diseases among the mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area at Rajkot.

HYPOTHESIS:

H₁: The mean post test score will be higher than the mean pretest score of knowledge regarding prevention of water borne disease.

H₂: There will be significant association between the selected demographic variables and pretest level of knowledge regarding prevention of water borne disease.

MATERIAL AND METHODS:

Research design:

Pre-experimental research design was chosen for this study without randomization.

Setting:

This study were conducting nandanvan, Rajkot. The study were conducted Mothers of under five-year children.

Population:

Accessible population for this study includes Mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area.

Sample:

Selected 40 samples.

Sampling Technique:

Non probability Convenience sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study.

Data Analysis:

The response were analyzed through descriptive statistics and interference statistics.

Description of Tool:

The investigator will Prepare a Data Collection tool Consisting of two Sections:

Section I: A Demographic Data (it consists of personal information such as age in years, educational status of the mother, no of children, type of family, family income, availability of mass media, source of water facility for drinking, any history of water borne disease etc.)

Section II: It contain the questionnaires to assess the levels of knowledge. The questionnaries contain set of 30 questions having total 30 score.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION:

Major Findings:

The major findings of the study include:

A. Findings Related to Demographic Characteristic of Subjects:

· The majority of 25(62.5%) samples' age is between 21-30 yrs. Majority of the sample 34(85.0%) were female group

· The majority of 12(30%) samples were illiterate.

· The majority of 15(37.5%) samples were 2 children.

· The majority of 17(42.5%) samples were nuclear family.

· The majority of 18(45%) samples were 10,000-50,000.

· The majority of 20(50%) samples were newspaper for mass media.

· The majority of 23(57.5%) samples were tap source of water.

· The majority of 25(62.5%) samples were diarrhea.

B. The first objective was to assess the knowledge regarding prevention of water borne disease among the mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area.

Study shows that pre-test level of knowledge among selected 40 sample of Mothers of under five-year children. reported 02(05%) adequate knowledge, 08(20%) moderate and 30(75%) inadequate knowledge.

C. The second objective was to evaluate effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding prevention of water borne diseases among the mothers of under five-year children in selected rural area at Rajkot:

The pre-test report 02(05%) Adequate knowledge, 08(20%) Moderate and 30(75%) Inadequate knowledge. After the structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding prevention of water borne disease. The post-test level of knowledge was 31(77.5%) adequate knowledge, 09(22.5%) moderate. It also revealed that the mean pretest score is 13.55 and the mean post test score is 24.72. The mean difference between the pretest and post test score is 11.17.

It hence the hypothesis stated, "shows that the comparison between the pre-test and post-test knowledge score obtained by the samples on structured teaching programme. The mean difference between the pretest and posttest was 11.17 and the standard deviation of pretest level was 4.07 and posttest was 3.02 and the calculated value is ('t'=14.32***) is higher than the table value (P= 2.05) at the level of 0.05 thus, researcher accepted the hypothesis H1.

D. The objectives were to find out the association between pre test score with selected demographic variables:

With regard to association of knowledge with their selected demographic variables researcher found the following demographic variables such as educational status and income of family per month found calculated chi square value higher than the tabulated value, this indicates these variables is a significant association between this variables and pretest knowledge, thus researcher accepted hypothesis H2. And the other demographic variables such as age, number of children, type of family, mass media at home, source of water, and history of water borne disease found calculated chi square value lower than the tabulated value, this indicates these variables is a non- significant association between this variables and pretest knowledge.

CONCLUSION:

From this study researcher found that Mothers of under five-year children had inadequate and moderate knowledge. This study was done to evaluate the structured teaching program among Mothers of under five-year children. Result of the study was shows that there was a significantly increases the knowledge on water bone disease among Mothers of under five-year children. Hence the community health nurse plays a direct role in identifying and analyzing knowledge among water borne disease among Mothers of under five-year children. So, in future nurses can prepare an effective structured teaching program to reduce the mortality rate.

REFERENCES:

1. Priyakar, R., and Sanjay Kumar Singh. Safe Drinking Water. Health Action. 2005; 18(2): 15-18.

2. Muthu, V.K. A short Book of Public Health (1st ed.). New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publication. 2005; 15-25.

3. Alice N. Information, frames of mind and practices about readiness of cholera malady and its avoidance in Ga-Mampurru town. Journal of Disaster Chance Studies. 8(2): 164.

4. Basavanthappa, B. T. Community Health Nursing (1st ed.). New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publication. 1999: 418-419.

Received on 01.06.2026 Revised on 23.06.2026

Accepted on 11.07.2026 Published on 05.08.2026

Available online from August 10, 2026

A and V Pub Int. J. of Nursing and Med. Res. 2026; 5(3):123-125.

DOI: 10.52711/ijnmr.2026.26

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