Abstract:
This study assessed the nutrition knowledge, dietary practices and associated factors of four hundred rural married women of child bearing age (15-45years) in Benue state Nigeria. The subjects were randomly selected from eight rural Tiv communities in four local government areas across two senatorial zones (A & B) of Benue State. The study adopted a cross sectional descriptive survey design. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select the sample for this study. A validated and pre tested questionnaire which was interviewer administered was used to obtain data on the socio economic characteristics of subjects; their nutrition knowledge, dietary practices and the socio economic determinants of nutrition knowledge and dietary practices of the subjects. The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was estimated to be 0.87 using Kuder Richardson formula 20 (KR20). Descriptive and inferential statistics of the Statistical Product for Service Solution (SPSS) version 21.0 were used for data analysis. The significance for this study was accepted at P<0.05. Results for the socioeconomic characteristics of respondents showed that majority (64.00%) of the subjects were within the age bracket of 15- 34years, 82.8% of them were married and living together with their husbands and out of the 400 women who participated in the study, 97.75% were Christians. Most of the subjects (70.50%) had no formal education. Majority (72.00 %) of the women were not lucratively employed. Low income level of less than ₦25,000 (74.00%) was recorded in most of the households sampled. More than half (52.00%) of these households had large family size of 6-10 members. The findings of this study also showed that 69.25% of the respondents had inadequate nutrition knowledge. This study also revealed that respondents (59.00%) had inappropriate dietary practices. The result of the study showed that education, occupation of respondents and their husbands as well as household income were the significant (P< 0.05) socio-economic determinants of nutrition knowledge in this study. Conversely, age, marital status, religion and household size of respondents were the insignificant (P>0.05) determinants of nutrition knowledge in the study. The study also indicated that marital status, occupation of respondents and their husbands, and household income were the significant determinants of dietary practices of respondents. However, age, religion, educational qualification and household size were not the significant determinants of dietary practices. The finding of this study showed that rural women of child bearing age in the study area have inadequate nutrition knowledge and inappropriate dietary practices. There was significant relationship between education, occupation and household income with the nutrition knowledge of participants, while their dietary practices were strongly associated with household income, occupation and marital status. Therefore, strategies aimed at improving the nutrition knowledge and dietary practices of rural ‘Tiv’ women in Benue state are imperative.
