Mother's knowledge of nutrition and protein intake in stunted children aged 12-36 months in Indonesia

Abstract

The objective of the study is to analyze the effect of mothers’ knowledge before and after counseling on nutrition and protein intake in stunting toddlers aged 12-36 months. This study used a quasi-experimental design with a two-group pretest-posttest design from May to August 2022 in Batujajar and Cihampelas Subdistricts, West Bandung Regency, Indonesia. Subjects consisted of 124 mothers who had stunted toddlers and were divided into 2 groups: control and treatment, with 62 toddlers each, with simple random sampling. In the 1^st and 4^th months, nutritional measurements of protein intake were carried out using the Food Frequency Questionnaire using the 2007 Nutrisurvey software. The statistical analysis included a t-test (comparison) for each pair of variables and tests for independence using the correlation coefficient and chi-square. Pretest nutrition knowledge in the majority control group was in the sufficient category at 38.7%. Meanwhile, in the treatment group, it was in the good category at 54.8%. Nutrition knowledge showed that the posttest control (15.45 ± 3.55) and the treatment (18.53 ± 1.49) groups were significantly different (p <0.01). Protein intake pretest and posttest (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th month protein) between the control and treatment groups were also significantly different (p<0.05). There was a significant posttest effect on mother's knowledge about nutrition and protein intake in stunted toddlers. Health workers are expected to continue to provide health education gradually and repeatedly to increase mothers' knowledge so the risk of stunting can be minimized.