Factors Associated With Minimum Dietary Diversity Among Children Aged 6 to 23 Months in Debre Berhan Town, Central Ethiopia: Community-based Cross-sectional Study
Abstract Background: Minimum dietary diversity (MDD) is the consumption of four or more food groups from the seven food groups. Poor infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices in the first 2 years of age are among major causes of childhood undernutrition, illness, and mortality. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating MDD and its associated factors among IYC aged 6–23 months in Debre Berhan town, central Ethiopia.Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was undertaken from January 1 to 30, 2017. A simple random sampling technique was used to sample 377 IYC aged 6-23 months with mothers/caregivers. An interviewer-administered structured and pretested questionnaire was used to collect data through a face-to-face interview. Data were cleaned and entered into Epidata 3.1, exported to SPSS software version 20. Logistic regression was fitted and an odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval (CI) and p-value less than 0.05 was used to identify factors associated with MDD. Results: A total of 377 IYC aged 6-23 months with mothers/caregivers were participated in the study. The proportion of children who met the MDD practice was 58.4%. Mother’s education [(AOR = 0.15; 95% CI = 0.02-0.88), (AOR = 0.21; 95% CI = 0.05-0.97)], mother’s occupation (AOR = 0.28; 95% CI = 0.15-0.54), father’s occupation (AOR = 3.45; 95% CI = 1.40-8.54), and number of antenatal care visit by mothers (AOR = 0.54; 95% CI = 0.30-0.97) were factors associated with MDD among IYC.Conclusion: Even though the study showed better progress as compared to the national prevalence of the consumption of MDD, it is substandard in the study area. Thus, more efforts need to be done to achieve the recommended MDD intake for all children aged between 6 and 23 months. Increasing mothers’ level of education, creating employment opportunities for both mothers and fathers’, and increasing the frequency of ANC service use are vital interventions to improve IYCF practices in Debre Berhan town.