Abstract
Child undernutrition and stunting remain serious public health problems in Indonesia. According to the Health Belief Model, increasing mothers’ knowledge of stunting is fundamental to establishing accurate threat perceptions predictive of behavior change. The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of factors related to maternal knowledge of stunting in Indonesia by addressing three questions: 1) How familiar with stunting are Indonesian mothers? 2) What antecedent factors do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? and 3) What health effects do Indonesian mothers associate with stunting? A total of 3,150 mothers participated in structured face-to-face interviews. Study measures targeted four main variables. Mothers were asked: 1) Have you heard of stunting?; 2) Have you heard of shortness?; 3) What causes stunting/shortness?; and 4) What are the effects of stunting? Only 66 (2.1%) mothers reported having heard of, read about, or knew something about stunting. Approximately two-thirds of participants attributed stunting to hereditary factors. Interrupted growth (33.7%), idiocy (13.8%), and easy to get sick (11.8%) were identified as health effects of stunting. Results highlight the need for health promotion and education efforts focused on increasing basic knowledge of stunting, its causes, and its health effects among Indonesian mothers
Highlights
Stunted growth, or stunting, is defined as a heightfor-age Z score more than two standard deviations below the World Health Organization (WHO) child growth standards for age and sex
Among mothers familiar with the term stunting, 33.3% associated the term with dwarf, 22.7% with height does not correspond to age, and 19.7% with shorter than average
Less than 15% of those respondents correctly identified shortness as being low height-for-age. These results demonstrate a strong need for both establishing stunting-specific vocabulary or terminology and engaging in a country-wide communication effort to inform and educate Indonesian mothers about this condition
Summary
Stunting, is defined as a heightfor-age Z score more than two standard deviations below the World Health Organization (WHO) child growth standards for age and sex. Stunting increases the risk of child disease and deaths [1], adversely affects cognitive and motor development [2], lowers performance at school [3], increases the risk of overnutrition and non-communicable diseases [4], and reduces productivity in adulthood [5]. Stunting is the result of chronic or persistent undernutrition stemming from poor maternal nutrition, poor feeding practices, and poor sanitation [3,4]. An estimated 156 million children under five years of age worldwide are stunted [6]. Despite dramatic economic advances in the last two decades, child undernutrition and stunting remain serious public health problems in Indonesia. Of the 24.5 million children under 5 years of age in Indonesia, approximately 9.2 million (37%) are stunted [7]. The high stunting rate in Indonesia is associated with a combination of complex factors, including nutrition, hygiene and childcare practices Regions with large rural populations exceed the national average, including West Kalimantan (39.7%), Central Kalimantan (39.6%) and South Sumatra (38.9%). The high stunting rate in Indonesia is associated with a combination of complex factors, including nutrition, hygiene and childcare practices
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