Vol. 9, Issue 4 (2020)

Author(s):
Loveleen Kaur, Sukhjeet Kaur and Preeti Sharma

Abstract:
Information is an element of knowledge that is publicly available, which can be shared and pass through the world. For any meaningful information to be provided, certain relevant information sources must be consulted keeping in mind the problems associated with use of different information sources. Thus the present study was undertaken with the objectives to assess information sources used by women, evaluation of various information sources, and find out the problems associated with use of information sources. The study was conducted in Ludhiana district of Punjab. Two blocks and two zones were selected purposively from Ludhiana district. Further two villages from each block and two localities from each zone were selected randomly. Twenty-five women from each selected village as well as from each locality in the age of 25-50 years were selected on random basis. Thus, total 200 women formed the sample for the study and data was collected with the help of an interview schedule. Health and hygiene practices were studied as personal, household and food related health and hygiene practices. Information sources were taken as informal, formal and mass media (print and electronic) sources. The results of the study showed that the informal sources (i.e. family, friends, neighbour and relatives) were the most preferred sources for seeking information on all health and hygiene practices. Information sources were never evaluated by the majority of the respondents for household and food related health and hygiene practices while these were sometimes evaluated in case of personal and overall health and hygiene practices. Major problems faced by the respondents related to informal, formal, print and electronic sources were unreliability, expensiveness, non-availability and lack of knowledge in using source respectively. There is need to motivate women to carefully select and evaluate information sources before seeking information, so that authenticated and appropriate information could be sought.