Objective: To examine knowledge of nutrition guidance during pregnancy in undergraduate students. Participants: 894 students from an introductory nutrition course at a four-year, large, public, land-grant university in Northern California. Methods: The Pregnancy Knowledge Nutrition Questionnaire was administered online; frequencies were calculated for correctness. ANOVA, Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference, and Principal Component Analysis were used to compare scores between gender, age, race/ethnicity, and academic major. Results: Mean knowledge score was 23.6 ± 9.3 out of 69 points (34/100%; range of 0-49 points). Females scored higher (24.1 ± 9.2 points), as compared to males (22.5 ± 9.6 points; p = 0.02). Scores differed by academic major (p Conclusions: Findings indicate students have limited knowledge of nutrition guidance during pregnancy. Future efforts on college campuses could consider supplemental lectures and education programming to improve knowledge.
Estrada et al. (Wed,) studied this question.