EVALUATION OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND PRACTICE ON THE USE OF FOOD SUPPLEMENTS IN PREGNANT WOMEN COVERED BY ZABOL HEALTH CENTERS

Background and Aim: Determination of the knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant women regarding the use of food supplements could be considered as an important in them. The present study was carried out aiming to determination of knowledge, attitude, and practice in pregnant women which used food supplements in Zabol health centers Methods: 400 Pregnant women were selected by cluster and simple random sampling in Zabol city in south-east of Iran. Evaluation of nutritional behavior was determined as good, medium and weak levels. The questionnaire contained 20,10,5 questions about knowledge, attitude and practice respectively. On the basis of score for every question, we classified the levels of knowledge and practice as weak, medium and good status respectively. Results: The percentage of knowledge, attitude, and practice levels were weak (19.2%, 4.7%, and 4.8%), medium (53.4%, 59%, and 50.8%) and good (27.4%, 44.4%, and 44.5%) respectively. There was a significant relationship between the level of knowledge and job regarding to using of nutritional supplements based on the number of pregnancies (p ˂0.0001).There were significant relationship between knowledge with attitude (r =0.49, p ˂0.0001) ,with practice ( r =0.29 , p ˂0.0001), and also attitude with practice (r =0.23 , p ˂0.0001) respectively. Conclusion: The results showed that nutritional KAP decreased in poor level and increased in fair and satisfactory levels. This finding indicates that participants would like to modify their life style for using of dietary supplements. It is also recommended to use the capacity of participants, and local facilities along with education and nutritional supporting programs.

کلیدواژه ها:

Knowledge ، attitude ، practice ، pregnant women ، food supplements ، Iran