Prevention of malnutrition among the under five children in Kasempa district

Abstract

This is a quantitative descriptive cross sectional study on knowledge, attitudes and practices of care takers towards prevention of malnutrition among the under five children in Kasempa District. The study was conducted in different communities of the district.The main objective of the study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of care takers towards the prevention of malnutrition among the under five children in Kasempa District. The study's specific objectives were to determine the care takers' knowledge in prevention of malnutrition, to ascertain the care takers' attitudes towards prevention of malnutrition, to explore practices of care takers towards prevention of malnutrition and to determine factors that influence care takers' knowledge, attitude and practices towards prevention of malnutrition among the under five children. The study was conducted between October 2010 and December 2011. A total of 50 respondents participated and were selected using the convenient sampling. Respondents were care takers of the under five children and were aged between 15 and 40 years irrespective of their marital, socio- economic and even educational status in Kasempa district. More than 75% of these care takers were farmers and living on less than K300, 000.00 monthly incomes.A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. The findings were that knowledge was moderate (76%) among the people with 84% of the respondents having positive attitude towards prevention of malnutrition. Furthermore, majority of the respondents 64% had acceptable practice. It was discovered that knowledge does not always improve practice or attitude. Some of the respondents with good practices had poor attitude and those with high levels of knowledge revealed negative attitude. There could be other factors that contribute to knowledge, attitudes and practices towards the prevention of malnutrition.There is need for the health personnel, policy makers and the community to work corporately and hard towards prevention of malnutrition. As knowledge on prevention of malnutrition increases among the care takers practices should equally be good and so instill positive attitude towards preventing malnutrition there by promoting good health for children and reduce on the child mortality rate.