- A comparative study to assess the knowledge and practice regarding newborn care among postnatal mothers in selected rural and urban communities in Rajahmundry with a view to conduct health education programme, was undertaken by Mrs. A. Swapna Kumari in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the reward of degree of Master of Science in Nursing from Swatantra College Of Nursing, Rajahmundry during thr year 2008- 2010.The main objectives were: to assess the knowledge and practice among the rural and urban postnatal mothers regarding newborn care; to compare the knowledge and practice ;to find out association between knowledge and practice with their demographic variables; to conduct health education programme on newborn care. The study had made use of survey approach with descriptive comparative design for assessing knowledge and practice. The setting of the study was rural and urban communities , Rajhmundry. Asample of 60 postnatal mothers were selected by simple random sampling technique as sampling technique for the study. The structured questionnaire, practice checklist and health education programme were validated and their reliability was determined. There is a significant difference between knowledge and practice so the hypothesis(H1) is accepted. The results suggested that by imparting health education to the postnatal mothers could bring about a well improvement in their knowledge and practice.

Keywords : f :Degree of freedomEt.al : All otherF :FrequencyN :Total number of samples