To Evaluate the Effect of Nutrition Education on Infants and Young Children's Nutritional and Health Status in East Wollaga Zone

NCT05503654 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: 10082022
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 520
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Child undernutrition is the principal cause of child morbidity and mortality worldwide. It manifests in different forms including stunting, wasting, underweight, and micronutrient deficiencies. Globally, in 2020 it is estimated that 149.2 million of children under 5 years of age were affected by stunting, 45.4 million were suffering from wasting and 38.9 million were overweight. The actual figures, particularly for stunting and wasting, are expected to be higher due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In spite of WHO and UNICEF recommendations on infants and young child feeding globally, 31% of children 6-8 months have not yet begun to eat complementary foods, and 81% of children aged 6-23 months are not fed the minimum acceptable diet (MAD). Inappropriate infant and young child feeding are a key causal factor in the development of malnutrition that increases the risk of undernutrition, illness, and mortality in infants and young children under five years, even more, severe in those less than 2 years of age because over two third of malnutrition is associated with inappropriate feeding practices during the first year of life. The first two years of life provide a critical window of opportunity for ensuring appropriate growth and development of children from generation to generation through optimal feeding. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition education delivered through Gada System leaders on nutrition and the health status of infants and young children. A Cluster randomized controlled trial design with two parallel arms among caregivers of infants and young children aged less than two years will be employed in East Wallaga Zone, Western Oromia, Ethiopia from October 01/2021 to November 30/2023. The intervention duration will be 6 months. A total of 566 mother-child dyads will be selected from eighteen kebeles via multi-stage cluster sampling methods. Pre-tested, structured, and interviewer-administered questionnaire will be used to collect data by trained data collectors. The collected data will be cleaned and checked for completeness, then enter into EpiData version 4.1 software to minimize error, then export to SPSS version 25 software for further analysis. Descriptive statistics and advanced analytics models including GEE and LMM will be used by checking the necessary assumption for each model. The output of the study findings could be useful for health and nutrition policymakers and other concerned bodies in decision making and to design effective intervention strategies to improve feeding practices thus mitigating child malnutrition and improving their health and growth. The total budget required to conduct the study will be 7,420 US dollar

Conditions

Education on Feeding and Health Status

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (2)

• Core indicators of CF.Practices (i.e.. Minimum dietary diversity, minimum meal frequency, and minimum acceptable diet)

  The developed questionnaire will be categorized according to World Health Organization and United Nations International Children Emergency Fund recommending guideline to assess the outcome variables. 1. Minimum dietary diversity: if the child is between 6-23 months of age consumed equal or greater than 5 food groups from 8 food groups during the previous day 2. Minimum meal frequency: If the children between 6-23 months of age consumed solid, semi-solid, or soft foods (but also including milk feeds for non-breastfed children) at least the minimum number of times(i.e.. 3 for breastfeeding, and 4 for non-breastfeed) during the previous day 3. Minimum acceptable diet: If the children between 6-23 months of age consumed a minimum acceptable diet (i.e. fulfill minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency for breast feed, and non-breastfeed) during the previous day.

  Baseline survey

• Minimum Dietary diversity score

  From the already developed questionnaire will be used to measure the change of dietary diversity between the baseline assessment and end-line assessment between and within the study groups after intervention according to World Health Organization recommendation guideline to measure the outcome variable.

  6 months of intervention

Secondary Outcomes (2)

• Child growth

  6 months of intervention

• Morbidity status

  6 months of intervention

Study Arms (2)

intervention group

EXPERIMENTAL

Intervention Arm is an arm in which nutrition education will be given to caregivers of infants and young children less than two years aged using the Health Belief Model and Theory of Planned Behavior.

Behavioral: Nutrition education

Control group

NO INTERVENTION

Control Arm is an arm to which the intervention will not be implemented.

Interventions

Nutrition education BEHAVIORAL

Those interventional groups will take nutrition education by Gada System leaders for 6 consecutive months

intervention group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Months - 24 Months
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• All infants and young children aged 6-17 months at the time of the baseline survey
• Residents in the sampled kebeles

You may not qualify if:

• Mothers who are ill and unable to communicate
• Infants and young children with birth defects, impaired feeding, twin and ill at the time of baseline survey.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Jimma University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Jimma University

Jimma, Oromiya, 378, Ethiopia

Location

MeSH Terms

Interventions

Nutrition Assessment

Intervention Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Data Collection; Epidemiologic Methods; Investigative Techniques; Health Care Evaluation Mechanisms; Quality of Health Care; Health Care Quality, Access, and Evaluation; Epidemiologic Measurements; Public Health; Environment and Public Health

Study Officials

• Tadele Amente

  Jimma University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: PREVENTION
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Principal Investigator

Model Details: A two-arm parallel cluster randomized community trial

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: August 11, 2022
• First Posted: August 17, 2022
• Study Start: September 19, 2022
• Primary Completion: October 30, 2022
• Study Completion: May 11, 2023
• Last Updated: March 27, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-03

Locations

ET (1)