Effect of community based nutritional education on knowledge, attitude and compliance to IFA supplementation among pregnant women in rural areas of southwest Ethiopia: a quasi experimental study

Abstract

Background Compliance with the iron folic acid supplementation is low and not at the required level to prevent anaemia during pregnancy in many countries, including Ethiopia, even though an iron-folic acid supplementation program is being implemented. The aims of this study were to determine the effect of community-based nutritional education on knowledge, attitude, and compliance to IFA supplementation in Ilu Aba Bor zone of southwest Ethiopia. Method A pretest–posttest quasi-experimental study design consisting of intervention and control group was conducted among pregnant women. The total sample size of 472, therefore, 236 pregnant women for each interventional and control group from 16 kebeles were randomly selected in two districts. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Then, individual study units were selected using a simple random sampling technique and followed until the end of the study period. Effect of community-based nutritional education on knowledge, attitude, and compliance to IFA supplementation among pregnant women in rural areas were measured. Results A total of 472 pregnant women participated in the study during the baseline and 437 (92.6%) were in the study until the end. The majority (49.2%) of respondents were 21–25 years of age, with a mean age of 23.4 (SD = 3.7) years. Community-based nutrition has resulted in a statistically significant increase in levels of maternal knowledge of IFAS by 15.2% in the intervention group compared to 5.1% in the control group. Similarly, the intervention group had odds of developing a positive attitude toward IFA 5.6 (4.01, 7.85) times higher than the control group. Moreover, in this study, the odds of compliance towards IFA supplementation were 3.9 (2.67, 5.57) times higher among those who received nutrition education than those women who did not. Conclusion This study revealed that community-based nutritional education can result in a significant change in knowledge, attitude, and compliance towards IFA supplementation and supports the literature suggesting the importance of the intervention to overcome the problem of poor compliance and its associated consequences.

Effect of Nutrition Education and Iron-folic acid supplementation on anemia among Pregnant Women: A quasi-experimental study

“…The ndings of the present study show that the odds of adherence to IFAS were 2.3 times higher among those women who received nutrition education than those who did not. This nding is in agreement with studies conducted in Kenya and Ethiopia which resulted in improved adherence to IFAS among women who received education compared to the control group (17,20,41).…”

“…Similar results were reported by other studies conducted with the nutrition education and individual counseling in Nepal, Indonesia and India (29,31,37). Studies conducted by Abdisa et al and Berhane, et al showed that nutrition education and counseling during pregnancy can improved adherence to IFAS (17,18). A study by Araban et al also showed that nutritional education based on Health Belief Model increased iron and folic acid intake in pregnant women (38).…”

“…Nutrition education and counseling is widely used strategy to improve maternal nutritional status during pregnancy (16). Evidence showed that health education intervention is an important tool to improve knowledge on anemia and adherence to the IFAS during pregnancy (17,18). Community-based health education on anemia and IFAS have also proved successful in Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam and Kenya where improvement in awareness and knowledge of anemia and IFAS reported (19,20).…”

Adaptation and Validation of the S-NutLit Scale to Assess Nutritional Literacy in the Peruvian Population

“…However, it seems that efforts to acquire a balanced diet through good nutritional literacy are not sufficient, as reflected in the high rates of patients who come to a health center for care and do not receive the necessary preventive information [ 25 ]. Hence, it is important to take into account that contributing to a healthy society is everyone’s task, since, according to previous research, nutritional literacy symbolizes a significant change in people’s knowledge and attitudes [ 26 ]. Thus, it is important that in addition to health professionals, every individual can maintain a certain level of nutritional literacy in order to support disease prevention or combat diseases.…”