ABSTRACT
Information is a source of power and is important for individual growth and survival. Information about health and hygiene is crucial because it influences an individual’s quality of life. As far as health and hygiene practices are concerned, women play anactive role in getting information about these; hence there is a need to study their information needs regarding health and hygiene. After finding out the needs of women regarding these aspects, accordingly information can be made accessible to them. Keeping this into account, the present study was conducted in Ludhiana district of Punjab. Data was taken from 200 rural and urban women of 25-50 years, by the help of an interview schedule. Health and hygiene practices were studied under three categories as personal, food related and household health and hygiene practices. Information needs were studied on a three point continuum i.e. highly needed, somewhat needed and not needed. Results of the study showed that under personal health and hygiene practice, information on hair care and obesity was most needed. The most needed information regarding food related health and hygiene was on low cost nutritious recipes. The major information need reported by the respondents was related to control of insects and pests in case of household health and hygiene practices and majority of the respondents had low level of information need for all health and hygiene practices. Information needs of the women were positively related with their education and mass media exposure, whereas age was negatively correlated with the information needs of women. Consequently, there is a need to educate women regarding health and hygiene practices through effective communication methods, so that they can realize the importance and need for information on these topics
ABSTRACT
The present study was undertaken with the objectives to identify the information-seeking behaviour of women regarding food related health and hygiene practices, and to ascertain the relationship of information-seeking behaviour of women with their personal and socio-economic characteristics. The study was conducted in both the rural and urban areas of Ludhiana district of Punjab, India. A total of 200 women formed the sample for the study, and data was collected with the help of an interview schedule. Information-seeking behaviour was studied in terms of information needs, use of information sources and information source evaluation. Findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents had low information needs for selected food related health and hygiene practices. Informal sources (like family, friends, neighbours and relatives) were the most frequently used sources of information, whereas use of all information sources i.e. formal sources, informal sources and mass media were found to be low by most of the respondents. Information sources were never evaluated by the majority of the respondents while looking for information on food related health and hygiene practices. Most of the respondents possessed passive information-seeking behaviour for food related health and hygiene practices. Information-seeking behaviour of the respondents was positively correlated with their education, caste, family income and mass media exposure while age of the respondents was negatively correlated with their information-seeking behaviour.