Nutrition knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and the influencing factors among non-parent caregivers of rural left-behind children under 7 years old in China

Abstract

Objective: To explore and compare nutrition knowledge, attitudes and behaviours (KAB) between non-parent and parent caregivers of children under 7 years old in Chinese rural areas, and to identify the factors influencing their nutrition KAB. Design: Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 1691 non-parent caregivers and 1670 parent caregivers in the selected study areas; multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify the factors influencing nutrition KAB in caregivers. Results: The awareness rate of nutrition knowledge, the rate of positive attitudes and the rate of optimal behaviours in non-parent caregivers (52?2 %, 56?9 % and 37?7 %, respectively) were significantly lower than in the parent group (63?8 %, 62?1 % and 42?8 %, respectively). Multivariate logistic regression modelling showed that caregivers' family income and care will, and children's age and gender, were associated with caregivers' nutrition KAB after controlling the possible confounding variables (caregivers' age, gender, education and occupation). Conclusions: Non-parent caregivers had relatively poor nutrition KAB. Extra efforts and targeted education programmes aimed to improve rural non-parent caregivers' nutrition KAB are wanted and need to be emphasized. In recent years, the nutrition and health of left-behind children has become a social and public health problem in China (1)(2)(3) . When parents are unable to take care of their children, the responsibility falls to non-parent caregivers, either grandparents or other relatives (4,5) . Some studies have reported that Chinese children under 7 years old who lived with non-parent caregivers received less care and faced many nutrition-related problems, such as low intake of some nutrients and poor physical growth and development (3,6,7) . Although there are various possible reasons for the nutrition-related problems of left-behind children, it is certain that caregivers' nutrition knowledge, attitudes and behaviours (KAB) is an important factor.Non-parent caregivers play a very important role in the daily care of rural left-behind children (3,8) ; thus their nutrition KAB will be associated with the nutrition of rural left-behind children (9) . There is some literature on this topic (10,11) . One study reported that because of non-parent caregivers' poor nutrition knowledge, rural left-behind children tended to be malnourished (10) . Another study revealed that non-parent caregivers' low knowledge regarding vitamin A was a critical factor for children's vitamin A deficiency (11) . However, these studies were mostly limited in scope and conducted with a small population, and there are few papers on non-parent caregivers' nutrition KAB in China. Clearly, such studies seem important because nonparent caregivers' nutrition KAB may enhance or impede the implementation and eventual success of a nutrition programme for left-behind children. Therefore, the purposes of the present study were to explore and compare nutrition KAB between non-parent and parent caregivers of ch...

Intergenerational differences in beliefs about healthy eating among carers of left-behind children in rural China: A qualitative study

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