Assessment of nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practice of mothers or caregivers with children under five years and relationship to child nutritional status

Abstract

Malnutrition results from a mismatch between nutrient need and intake such as protein-energy in children in many developing countries. In the entire world, undernutrition is believed to be responsible directly or indirectly for at least two-thirds of deaths in children under the age of five years. Interventions that address child malnutrition are needed and should focus among others on enhancing the knowledge, attitude, and practices of mothers or caregivers of these children. However, nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practices of mothers or caregivers of children are unknown in Meru county. Thus, this study aims to determine mothers' or caregivers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to nutrition and how this affects the nutritional status of their children aged 0-5 years. The study will adopt a cross-sectional analytical study design and will be carried out in four major hospitals in four Sub-counties in Meru County; namely Miathene level four Hospital, Muthara level four hospital, Githongo level four hospital, and Meru teaching and referral hospital in Tigania West, Tigania East, Imenti Central and Imenti North, respectively. Data will be collected by anthropometric measurements and the researcher administered questionnaires and focus group discussions. Anthropometric measurements will be analyzed using WHO anthro which will convert raw anthropometric data into anthropometric indices of WAZ, WHZ, and HAZ and compare them with the WHO reference data. Data collected in the questionnaire will be statistically analyzed for frequency, descriptive statistics, correlation, and chi-square to evaluate associations in SPSS. It is envisaged that data from this study will provide important information especially when designing and implementing malnutrition mitigating initiatives or programs.