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DOI: 10.4103/ijmbs.ijmbs_49_18
Knowledge, attitude, and practice of parents regarding Vitamin A supplementation to children in Benghazi, Libya
Background: According to the World Health Organization, Vitamin A deficiency can cause immune system depression in about 130 million preschool children and 7 million pregnant women mostly in developing countries and cause mortality risk up to 20%–30%. Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of parents in Benghazi regarding the Vitamin A campaign. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study of 1390 parents attending maternal and child health clinics and pediatric clinics at six main polyclinics, in Benghazi in April and May 2018. Results: Most of the parents were younger than 40 years (71%). Mothers constitute 68% of the study population and 52% of the children were male. Half of the parents had higher education. Only 40% of the parents were having good knowledge about the benefits and food sources of Vitamin A. The coverage rate of Vitamin A supplementation among under-five children in the study was 66%. The main reason for not giving their children Vitamin A supplementation in this study was the lack of awareness of the campaign during the previous year. However, 88% of the interviewed parents had a positive attitude of regiving Vitamin A to their children in the next campaign. Conclusions: The overall knowledge level of Vitamin A among the parents was relatively low; hence, more efforts are needed to promote awareness about Vitamin A supplementation.
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Artikel online veröffentlicht:
07. Juli 2022
© 2018. The Libyan Authority of Scientific Research and Technologyand the Libyan Biotechnology Research Center. All rights reserved. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License,permitting copying and reproductionso long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, oradapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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