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

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.

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

Attitudes ، Complementary Feeding ، Food security ، Iran ، Knowledge ، mothers