Knowledge, attitudes and practices of undergraduate nursing students regarding childhood malnutrition at a higher education institution in the Western Cape
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Date
2024
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Publisher
University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Malnutrition in children under the age of five (5) years has become a significant public health problem. It is reported that it globally affects 52 million children resulting in approximately one third of eight million deaths in this age group. The role of undergraduate nursing students as future professional nurses is pivotal in the management of malnutrition and it is important that they are competent to screen, identify and prevent malnutrition. It became anecdotally evident that undergraduate nursing students experience difficulty to understand and apply the basic terminology of nutrition, growth, growth monitoring, and to identify malnutrition in children. This research study investigates the knowledge, attitudes and practices of undergraduate nursing students regarding childhood malnutrition. It was conducted in a School of Nursing at a Higher Education Institution in the Western Cape, South Africa. A quantitative, descriptive study was conducted with a population that consists of third-year (n=244) and fourth-year (n=201) undergraduate nursing students registered for the 2020 academic year (n=445). Stratified random sampling was used as the sampling strategy targeted 200 third-year and fourth-year students. A total number of 62 third-year and 76 fourth-year students voluntarily consented to participate. The data collection instrument was a structured, electronic questionnaire. Data was automatically captured on a Google Excel spreadsheet and was imported into the Statistical Package for Social Science version 26.0. The data was analysed against the research objectives through descriptive analysis. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the UWC Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee.
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Keywords
Children, Malnutrition, Primary health care, Undergraduate nursing student, Practices