Effect of Training to Knowledge and Practices of Dasa Wisma Activists as Pregnant Women Assistants in Preventing Low Birth Weight

The number of Low Birth Weight (LBW) in Indonesia is still high because of, among others, the lack of mothers’ knowledge to prevent LBW case. The solution proposed is to encourage Dasa Wisma (Dawis) activists to assist pregnant women as one of the strategic actions. The aim of the research was to analyze the effect of assistance training towards the knowledge and practices of Dawis activists related to the prevention of LBW case in pregnant women. Method of this research was pretest and posttest without control group design of Quasi-experimental were applied. The population sampled using purposive random sampling was 37 Dawis activists in Tlogosari Wetan District, Semarang. The distance between pretest and posttest was approximately one month. Test result of Wilcoxon Match Paired test revealed that there were significant differences in the knowledge (p < 0.05) and practices (p < 0.05) of Dawis Activists before and after the intervention of assistance training. In the end of this research, the knowledge of Dawis Activists increased 5.97 points, while their practices increased 3.97 points. The recommendation from this research is that assistance training for Dawis Activists is necessary, even if it is only for a day, in order to increase the competence of Dawis Activists in assisting pregnant women to prevent Low Birth Weight case in one month.