Households Dietary Diversity and Associated Factors in Konso, South Ethiopia

Background: Diversifed diet promotes meeting the minimum requirement of essential nutrients. Households with nondiversifed diet often face poor health status which results from nutrient defciency. This is common problem in rural communities of southern Ethiopia. Objective: To assess the prevalence and associated factors of household dietary diversity in Konso district South Ethiopia. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted from January to February, 2018. Out of 40 Kebles in the district, 9 were randomly selected. Data were collected using a pre-tested questionnaire which was adapted from the World Food and Agricultural Organization. Data were entered in using Epi info version 7 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 for analysis. Frequencies were calculated. Odds ratio with the corresponding 95% confdence interval was calculated to identify risk factors of in adequate dietary diversity. Result: A total of 423 households participated in the study. More than9% of the households had high dietary diversity, while 48.5% had medium and 41.9% had low dietary diversity. High proportion of the study households consumed vegetables (87.5%) and cereals (78.7%) while very low proportion of them consumed milk products; 16 (2.8%) and sea foods; 11 (1.9%). Rural residency [AOR 2.0, CI (1.2, 3.5)], female headed households[AOR 5.4, CI (1.5, 19.4)], lower educational level, lack of information on dietary diversity[AOR 1.8, CI (1.1, 2.9)] and low household wealth index [AOR 1.6, CI(10, 2.6)] increased the risk of inadequate household dietary diversity. Conclusion: In this study, we found high prevalence of inadequate dietary diversity. The diets were mainly based on starchy staple (cereals and vegetable) with little animal products. A number of factors increased the risk of inadequate household dietary diversity.