Nutritional Knowledge Level and Child Care Practices among Severe Acute Malnourished (SAM) Children (6-59) Months Admitted to the Pediatric Unit in Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Ghana

Abstract

Background: Childhood malnutrition remains a major public health challenge in Northern Ghana, and limited evidence exists on the nutritional knowledge and childcare practices of caregivers of severely acute malnourished children attending tertiary healthcare facilities. Aim: The main aim is to evaluate the caregivers nutritional knowledge and child care practices of malnourished children within ages of 6-59 months that are admitted to the pediatric ward of Tamale Teaching Hospital, Tamale, Ghana. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional hospital based study. Place and Duration of Study: Pediatric Unit, Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), between july 2020 to july 2021. Methodology: A total of 250 participants were recruited. Data was obtained using a structured interview questionnaire which covers the demographic characteristics, caregivers nutritional knowledge and feeding behaviors, hygiene behavior and practices, health seeking behavior and childcare practices. The nutritional knowledge of the care givers was classified as poor, moderate and good based on the score. Results: This study included total of 250 caregivers. The mean age was 29.8 ± 7.4 years. Most of them were mothers (91.2%), and had basic education (46.8%). Good nutritional knowledge was observed in 17.2%, moderate nutritional knowledge in 38.8% and poor nutritional knowledge in 44% of the respondents. Appropriate complementary feeding was observed in only 19.6% of the children as against poor and moderately complementary feeding of 51% and 29.4% respectively, and minimum dietary diversity was observed in 36.4% of the children. Approximately 58% reported regular handwashing and 66.0% took children to health care services in time when they were sick. Secondary education or above was significantly associated with good nutritional knowledge (aor = 2.84, 95% ci: 1.54–5.21). In addition, good nutrition knowledge was significantly associated with good child care practices (aor = 3.17, 95% ci: 1.82–5.53). Conclusion: The results indicated that, the caregivers had generally poor nutritional knowledge and poor child care practices. Appropriate childcare behaviors were strongly associated with educational attainment and nutrition knowledge. Improving nutrition education and behavior change communication level could have a positive impact on childcare practices and childhood malnutrition in Northern Ghana.