Survey of the knowledge and attitudes of mothers referring to health centers of Ilam city about the nutrition of children under two years of age.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Student Research Committee, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran

2 MsC, Abadan School of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran

3 PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Education, Department of Public Health, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran

4 MsC, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Having appropriate nutrition for children under two years of age is the most important factor in ensuring the healthy life, growth and development in the following years. The aim of this study was survey of the knowledge and attitudes of mothers referring to health centers of Ilam city about the nutrition of children under two years of age.
Methods & materials:  Three hundred women referring to health centers of Ilam were randomly selected to enroll in this cross sectional study. . The questionnaire was consisted of two parts. The first part was demographic questions and the second had 12 knowledge questions and 11 questions related to attitude of mothers about breast feeding and complementary feedings. The data was analyzed by using spss-16 software, chi-square and ANOVA tests.
Results:  The mean age of participants was 29/75 years. The results showed that 13.3% of mothers had favorable nutrition knowledge, 67.7% were partially favorable and the rest were unfavorable. Also, 17.3% had favorable attitudes, 62% were partially favorable and 20.7% of mothers with children under two years of age had unfavorable attitude about nutrition in two first years of life. The results showed that there is significant relation between age of mothers and attitude toward feeding the children of under two years of age (p< 0/05).
Conclusion: According to the result, the knowledge and attitude is pretty good but some mothers, espicially younger ones, do not have knowledge about nutrition. So, we must pay more attention to this group  and perform appropriate educational programs about nutrition of children under two years of life.

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