Mothers' Knowledge and Attitude toward Food Security in Complementary Feeding of 1-2 Year Old Children and its Relation with Demographic Indices

Abstract

Background: Food insecurity denotes failure to provide adequate food. Knowledge and attitude play a key role in food security, which is of paramount importance in the first two years of life. Aim: This study aimed to evaluate mothers' knowledge and attitude towards food security in complementary feeding of 1-2 year-old offspring. Method: Using a cross-sectional study, 400 mothers of children 1-2 years old were selected from comprehensive health service centers in Bushehr, in 2016. The data collection instrument included a self-made questionnaire with 20 knowledge questions with CVR=0.95, CVI=0.95, and reliability 0.7 as well as a questionnaire with 26 questions on the attitude with CVI=0.94, CVR=0.91 and reliability 0.76 which were completed by the mothers and analysis with Spearman correlation, logistic regression and descriptive statistics. Results: The mean age of the mothers was 29.5±4.9 years. We found that 74 (18.5%) of the mothers had an inappropriate level of knowledge and 10.5% of them had a negative attitude toward food security in complementary feeding. There was a significant positive correlation between knowledge and attitude (r=0.26, P=0.001). Maternal age (OR=1.10, P<0.001), maternal occupation (OR=3.09, P=0.01), mothers with diploma (OR=3.25, P=0.01) and academic education (OR=12.29, P<0.001), fathers with diploma (OR=3.37, P=0.004) and academic education (OR=5.59, P<0.001), household income (OR=7.13, P=0.001), and babysitting in kindergarten (OR=3.17, P=0.03) were the factors associated with mothers' knowledge of food security. Attitude was significantly related to maternal occupation (OR=3.33, P=0.05) and income higher than 2000$ (OR=4.87, P=0.03). Implications for Practice: Long-term planning regarding demographic determinants such as educational level and identifying factors related to food security should be considered.