Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Toward Nutrition and Diet During Pregnancy Among Recently Delivered Women of Syrian Refugees

The aim of this study is to assess the nutrition situation in terms of knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) among recently delivered Syrian refugee women and to identify nutrition related KAP problems of this vulnerable population. An analytical descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a nonrandomized sample of one hundred recently delivered Syrian women from refugee background aged 18 years old and above who were admitted for delivery to the obstetric unit of a governmental hospital located in Beirut, Lebanon. The study reveals that fifty-six percent of the studied population was not knowledgeable about maternal nutrition during pregnancy, twenty-five percent had a negative attitude toward antenatal care (ANC) services and nutrition during pregnancy and forty-seven percent of the participants were having bad dietary practices during pregnancy. Knowledge, attitude and practices toward nutrition and diet during pregnancy are still lacking among this sensitive population. DOI: 10.18297/rgh/vol1/iss2/6 Submitted Date: June 6, 2017 Accepted Date: March 20, 2018 Website: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/rgh Affiliations: 1Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, B. P. 446 Jounieh, Lebanon 2Lebanese University, Faculty of Public Health, Beirut, Lebanon *Correspondence To: Dana Harb, MSc Work Address: Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, B. P. 446 Jounieh, Lebanon Work Email: dannaharb@gmail.com 32 Original Research © ULJRGH 2018 Vol 1, (2) The objective of this study is to assess the nutrition situation in terms of knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) among recently delivered Syrian refugee women and to identify nutrition related KAP problems of the studied population. Several hypotheses were identified as follows: 1. Nutritional knowledge is associated with maternal educational level, access to ANC services and newborn birth weight among Syrian refugees. 2. Women’s attitude toward nutrition is related to maternal educational level, access to ANC services and newborn birth weight among Syrian refugees. 3. Dietary practice is associated with maternal educational level, access to ANC services and newborn birth weight among Syrian refugees. Materials and Methods An analytical descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 100 recently delivered Syrian women from a refugee background aged 18 years old and above to assess their knowledge, attitude and practices toward nutrition during pregnancy. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval has been issued from the hospital to access the medical records of each Syrian pregnant woman admitted for delivery to the obstetric unit of Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH), the largest governmental hospital located in Beirut, Lebanon. All women who were included in the study were interviewed after delivery and given a consent form to confirm their participation in the study; accordingly, a face to face questionnaire was filled. Data were collected for 2 months starting August 2016. Questionnaire Design The used questionnaire in this study was an adapted version of previously validated questionnaire (Marías et al., 2014), it tackled data on socio-demographic and medical characteristics, the context of pregnancy and prenatal care (Ibanez et al., 2015), pre-pregnancy weight, women’s perception to nutrition importance and supplementation, women’s attitude toward ANC and maternal and infant nutrition and mother’s dietary practices. The questionnaire and the consent form were translated to Arabic language by an expert translator and verified by a gynecologist. A quantitative approach was used to assess KAP toward nutrition and diet during pregnancy of the studied population. Knowledge questions consisted of 10 open ended questions requiring short answers from the participants. Attitude questions consisted of 6 questions which had three answer options showing one for positive attitude, one for uncertainty and the third for negative attitude. Practice questions consisted of 10 “yes-no” questions in addition to short food intake checklist. Indicators to quantify knowledge, attitude and practice were reported in terms of percentages and scores (Onyeneho & Subramanian, 2016; Liu et al., 2015; Sani & Siow, 2014; Popa et al., 2013; Khun et al., 2012).