Knowledge, attitudes and practices analysis of alimentary practices from mothers of preschool children in the urban Community 9 of Armenia (Quindio)

Abstract

Children require permanent care as they grow, they acquire the bases to generate their own healthy habits. Usually is the mother, as the primary caregiver, the person that have the responsibility of strengthen in their children the aspects related with the correct way of feeding

This paper reports the results of a quantitative cross sectional research, which aimed at the description of the knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers about feeding their preschool children in the district 9 the city of Ar­menia, Quindío. It was applied a non- Probabilistic sample. A self-administered questionnaire type CAP, (Knowled­ge, Attitudes and Practices), was applied to fifty women between aged eighteen and fifty four years of age, which was designed by the authors, a pilot test was applied to the questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed in Microsoft Excel version 2010.

An important finding in this study is that mothers recognize healthy food, additionally they can identify the most important food´s groups in the diet of their children. Women that answered the questionnaire show indifference in relation with the attitudes about the feeding, they have poor feeding practices too.

The current literature on the subject is limited; however, the findings of this study were contrasted with reports from national and international research.