Nutritional Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of diet among mothers regarding their children aged 0-5 years in Salamiyah, Syria.

Abstract

Malnutrition has always been a public health problem affecting children under five in particular. Nutrition can be affected by many factors from birth like breastfeeding habits, weaning, and types of meal intake. This study aimed to contribute to describing the nutritional knowledge, attitudes, and practice levels among mothers regarding their children aged one day to five years in Salamiyah city in Syria. A cross-sectional study was conducted on the mothers of children who were selected by randomized cluster sampling. Data were collected from mothers through face-to-face interviews using KOBO Collect app and with the help of research assistants. Data was entered and analyzed by IBM SPSS. A total of 212 mothers were included in this study. The findings revealed the KAP levels of breastfeeding, weaning, and meal intake. The major takeaway of this research is that there were high levels of knowledge of these topics, however, practice levels were lower than hypothesized. Mothers' knowledge, attitude, and practices can have a huge impact on the diet of their children's nutritional status. Considering the adverse impacts, initiatives toward the development and health education of mothers are needed to uplift the health status of children.