Nutritional knowledge, attitude and practices among pregnant women who attend antenatal care at public hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

During pregnancy, maternal nutrition requires considerable attention; however, pregnant women’s nutritional knowledge, attitudes, and practices are less understood. The objective of this study was to assess nutritional knowledge, attitude, and practices among pregnant women who attend antenatal care at public hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted to collect relevant data of 322 pregnant women, who attended antenatal care service in selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from April to May, 2015. Simple random sampling procedure was used to select the public hospitals and systematic sampling techniques were used to select pregnant mothers by using hospitals’ registration lists. Data were coded and entered to computer using Epi data version 3.1 and exported to statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) program version 21.0 for further analysis. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to identify independent predictors of knowledge, attitude, and practices of pregnant women regarding nutrition. The study revealed that of the 322 pregnant women surveyed, 87(27%), 156(48.4%), and 111(34.5%) of them had knowledge, favorable attitude, and good practices of nutrition during pregnancy, respectively. There was a positive significant association between educational status of women (AOR=3.047, 95%CI (1.046 to 8.873)), family income (AOR=3.093, 95%CI (1.076 to 8.890)), attitude (AOR=4.4, 95%CI (2.315 to 8.299)), number of pregnancies (AOR=2.175, 95%CI (1.034 to 4.573)) and nutrition knowledge during pregnancy. Whereas knowledge, family income, husband education and occupation had a positive association with good practices of nutrition during pregnancy. Knowledge, attitude and practices of pregnant mothers regarding nutrition during pregnancy were low in the study area.   Key words: Knowledge, attitude, practice, nutrition; malnutrition, pregnancy, Ethiopia.