Assessment of maternal nutritional knowledge and its predictors among mothers attending an urban primary health care unit in Giza

Background: Global evidence that the first 1000 days of a child’s life found to be the most precious period of child’s nutrition status development, where the impact of malnutrition during this critical period are likely to have a long term consequences which might be irreversible. Considering Mothers are mainly the caregiver of their children, sufficient maternal nutrition knowledge is essential for a healthy child with normal nutrition status and free of malnutrition. The study aimed to assess the level of nutritional knowledge and its predictors for mothers with children aged 0-24 months.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 288 conveniently recruited mothers- having children aged between 0-24 months- attending an urban primary health care center in Giza. Maternal nutrition literacy was assessed using an interview guided questionnaire. Maternal total nutrition knowledge score was calculated for each participant, out of 20. Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and spearman’s correlation non-parametric tests were used to delineate associations between different variables and the total Knowledge score.

Results: The mean and standard deviation of maternal total knowledge score was 13.31 ± 2.29. There was a significant statistical relation (P ≤ 0.05) between each of the following; mothers’ education, mothers’ occupation, mothers’ residence and maternal nutritional knowledge score. A weak negative statistical significant correlation between number of mothers' children and their nutritional knowledge score was found, whereas no statistical significant correlation between mothers’ age and their nutritional knowledge level was detected. A significant multiple regression model was found with adjusted R square =27.1% &p value of 0.001. Selected variables by the model were: University level of mother’s education in relation to non- university level with (standardized b = 0.48, p-value = 0.000), maternal occupation whether working in relation to non- working mothers (standardized b = 0.40, p-value = 0.000) and Number of children with (standardized b = -0.11, p-value = 0.039).

Conclusion : The participating mothers possessed a reasonable level of knowledge regarding different aspects of child healthy nutrition. Maternal nutrition knowledge scores were higher among university graduate mothers, among mothers living in higher socio-economic class and amongst mothers having less number of children.