Background of the study: In the context of the Children’s growth and development do not occur in a linear fashion, but are influenced by each child’s environment, nutrition and parental care. Children are malnourished if their diet does not provide adequate nutrients for growth and maintenance or they are unable to fully utilize the food they eat due to illness (under nutrition). Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients. Mother’s inadequate knowledge of nutrition leads to unsuitable feeding practices; this is further impeded by adherence to strict cultural beliefs/practices. To improve feeding practices, nutrition education should focus on changing current knowledge, attitudes and practices. This could improve the long-term health status of people in the community ^[5].

Aims: An evaluative study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge regarding prevention and control of malnutrition among the mothers of under five children residing in rural community of Dharwad district.

Conceptual Frame work: J. W. Kenny's Open System Model

Methodology: An evaluative and qualitative approach use with one group pretest-posttest design was adopted for the study. The samples from the rural community of Dharwad district were selected using non probability purposive sampling technique. The sample consisted of 60 mothers of under five children. The tools used for data collection was structured knowledge questionnaire and structured teaching program was developed. The data analysis was done by using both descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The findings reveal that the post-test mean knowledge scores was found higher [mean=23.73, SD of 3.76] when compared with pre-test mean knowledge score value which was 10.90 with SD of 2.91. The statistical paired ‘t’ implies that the difference in the pretest and post-test value was found statistically significant at 5% level (p<0.05) with a paired ‘t’ value of 22.29. There exists a statistical significance in the difference of knowledge score indicating the positive impact of structured teaching program. The computed Chi-square value for association between level of knowledge of mothers of under five children regarding prevention and control of malnutrition and their selected demographic variables is not found to be statistically significant at 0.05 levels. There is significant association found between age, religion, educational status of mothers, monthly income, die pattern and previous knowledge of mothers of under five children.

Interpretation and Conclusion: The findings revealed that, Knowledge of mothers of under five children regarding prevention and control of malnutrition was inadequate before the administration of structured teaching program. The structured teaching programme was effective in increasing the knowledge of mothers of under five children regarding prevention and control of malnutrition. Since a very few studies have been conducted regarding this topic in India, so the nurse researcher can take further studies on the same topic.