MATERNAL KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN UNDER FIVE YEARS OF AGE

Abstract

Public health issues in general in developing countries including in Indonesia are lack of micronutrients, especially for infants and children in the first two years of life. Nutritional problems that are of major concern to the world today are stunting. Nutritional problems are disruptions to individuals or the community caused by not fulfilling the need for nutrients obtained from food. This study aimed to analyze the associations of knowledge, maternal attitude with nutritional status of children under five years of age. Method: This type of research is a cross-sectional study. Research subjects for mothers who have children under five in the Puskesmas in the Municipality of Yogyakarta. The sample in this study was 383 children under five. Other data were collected by questionnaire for collecting anthropometric and measurements for the weight for age Z-score. The nutritional status of children under five years old weight for age is categorized as good Zscore -2.0 SD to 2.0 SD. The data were analyzed by a logistic regression. Result: Mother's knowledge of nutrition and the mother's attitude towards improving nutrition to the nutritional status of children under five with a significance value of Chi-Square 0.604 (> 0.05). Conclusion: Mother's knowledge about nutrition and mother's attitude towards nutritional improvement on nutritional status of children under five based on ordinal regression bivariate data analysis is no effect on the mother's knowledge about nutrition and maternal attitudes toward improving nutrition to the nutritional status of children under five.

Keywords: maternal knowledge, attitude, nutritional status of children