Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Mothers/caregivers on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Tigray Region, Northern, Ethiopia: A Cross-sectional Study (Preprint)

Abstract

Even if the package of health extension program in Ethiopia had practiced on infant and young child feeding system, yet, the infant and young child feeding practice has been poor, so, Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of mothers/caregivers on infant and young child feeding are key factors for optimal nutritional status, health and growth of the children.

This study aims to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers/caregivers on infant and young child feeding in Tigray Reginald State, Ethiopia post of the civil war was assessed.

A cross-sectional study was carried out among 1245 pregnant and lactating mothers (PLM) or caregivers on South East and Central zonal of Tigray Regional State, Northern Ethiopia, by using structured interviewer administered questionnaire. The principal component analysis was carried out to generate KAP indices. Descriptive logistic regression analyses were performed to isolate for good knowledge, good practice and favorable attitude of the mothers/caregivers related to child feeding.

A total of 1249 lactating and pregnant women households from the community were included in the study (response rate 99.5%). With mean age (±SD) of the mothers were 28.35 ± 5.91 years. The average household size was 4.46. More than three fourth of the participants 1010(80.93%) were rural residences and more than half (662) (53.04%) of the mothers were Farmer. In this study majority (90.7%, 93.4% and 69.3%) of the participants knew the importance of timely initiation, exclusive and duration of the breastfeeding; while, in actual practice, there were (78.9%,75.3% and 64.5%) timely initiation, exclusive and duration of the breastfeeding; indicating a huge gap between knowledge and practice of mothers /care givers.

Despite the high knowledge of the participants on infant and young child feeding, a large proportion of mothers/caregivers had poor practice on proper infants and young child feeding. Behavior change communication interventions using strategies appropriate for the mothers/ caregivers change their wrong attitude on giving additional food for infants as soon as they born, to strengthen exclusive breastfeeding until the six months of infants age, to narrowing between knowledge and practices related to infant and young child feeding need to be performed using female associations, frontline health actors, developmental army to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice.